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Chocolate Cream Drops

Chocolate cream drops are small balls of sweetened cream coated in chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Chocolate Cream Drops

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 ↓

Chocolate Cream Drops

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fondant

  1. Mix the cream and sugar in a saucepan and boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

  2. Set the saucepan in a bowl of cold water and stir until the mixture hardens.

  3. Add vanilla for flavor if desired.

Shape and coat

  1. Form the mixture into small balls, about the size of marbles.

  2. Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a boiling kettle.

  3. Roll each ball in the melted chocolate using a fork.

  4. Place the chocolate-coated drops on brown paper to cool.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Cream
Adds fat and richness, softening the texture of the cooked sugar mixture.
White sugar
Forms the sweet base that boils and then sets into a firm, creamy fondant.
Chocolate
Forms a sweet, glossy outer coating that hardens as the drops cool.

The step that matters

Stir until the mixture hardens. Stirring while the boiled sugar cools makes many tiny sugar crystals, giving a creamy, smooth centre. Letting it sit still instead can leave it grainy or too hard to shape.

“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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