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Chocolate Icing

A sweet icing made from sugar, milk, butter, chocolate, and folded egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chocolate Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chocolate base

  1. Combine sugar, milk, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Heat until the butter melts.

  3. Add the chocolate and stir until fully melted and combined.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

Finish the icing

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Fold the egg whites into the chocolate mixture until well combined.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the icing and helps give it body as it cools and sets.
Butter
Adds fat for smooth richness and a tender, glossy texture.
Chocolate
Provides the main chocolate flavor and firms the icing as it cools.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the icing and add airy volume.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites beaten to stiff peaks trap air, which deflates if stirred vigorously. Fold gently, and only once the chocolate mixture has cooled slightly, so the icing stays light and does not scramble the whites.

“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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