Why it works: Sugar and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,404 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Chocolate Drops
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sugar mixture
In a saucepan, combine the sugar and cold water.
Boil for four minutes, then stir until cool enough to handle.
Shape and coat
Form the mixture into small balls.
Melt the Baker's chocolate in a separate bowl.
Roll the cooled balls in the melted chocolate.
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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Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,404 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Granulated sugar
- Provides sweetness and, once boiled and cooled, a firm mass that holds its shape.
- Baker's chocolate
- Forms the coating and adds rich chocolate flavor.
The step that matters
Boiling and cooling the sugar mixture. Boiling dissolves the sugar fully and concentrates the syrup so the mixture firms when cooled. Stirring a hot sugar syrup can trigger crystallization, which makes the texture grainy, so the cooling step needs care.
“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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