Why it works: Cocoa and coffee work together. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 91 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓
Chocolate Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Mix the dried egg, flour, cocoa, sugar, and salt in a bowl.
Add a little of the coffee to the dry mixture to make a smooth paste.
Boil the remaining coffee and pour it over the mixture.
Stir well and return to the saucepan.
Bring to a boil and cook for 3 minutes.
Add the vanilla extract and pour into a mold.
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.
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Cocoa + coffeetop 3% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together91 recipes
Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
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Cocoa + vanillatop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together357 recipes
Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
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Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Coffee + vanillatop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,391 recipes
Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
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Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,241 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Dried egg
- Thickens and sets the cream as it cooks, giving it body.
- Flour
- Thickens the liquid into a smooth, spoonable texture.
- Cocoa
- Provides the chocolate flavour and deep colour.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cream and balances the bitterness of the cocoa.
The step that matters
Making the smooth paste. Mixing a little coffee into the dry ingredients first hydrates the flour and egg evenly. Adding all the liquid at once would form lumps that are hard to remove.
Swap the cocoa
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, sugar, coffee, vanilla):
- Almondfits better
- Hazelnutfits better
- Chestnutfits better
- Cocoathe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, sugar, coffee, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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