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Dessert

Hot Chocolate Sauce

A thickened chocolate sauce made with butter, chocolate, sugar, salt, boiling water, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Hot Chocolate Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a granite pan.

  2. Add the chocolate and stir until melted.

  3. Mix in the sugar, salt, and boiling water.

  4. Boil for 12 to 15 minutes until it thickens to a syrup.

  5. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + chocolatetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,543 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Unsweetened chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and the body of the sauce as it melts.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and, as it dissolves and boils, thickens it into a syrup.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel to the sauce.
Boiling water
Loosens the melted chocolate and sugar into a pourable liquid before boiling.

The step that matters

Boil for 12 to 15 minutes until it thickens to a syrup. Sugar concentrates as water evaporates, so the sauce thickens only through steady boiling. Stopping early leaves it thin, while overcooking makes it stiff as it cools.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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