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Dessert

Chocolate Filling

A chocolate filling made with grated chocolate, sugar, boiling water, corn starch, butter, salt, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Chocolate Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Thicken the base

  1. Moisten the corn starch in a little cold water.

  2. Add the moistened corn starch to the boiling water.

  3. Cook until thick.

Finish the filling

  1. Stir in the grated chocolate, sugar, butter, salt, and 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. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, 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

Corn starch
Thickens the liquid as its granules swell and gelatinize when heated.
Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and fat that make the filling rich.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the chocolate's bitterness.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Moisten the corn starch before adding it to the boiling water. Starch clumps when it hits hot liquid dry. Mixing it into cold water first spreads the granules evenly, so the filling thickens smoothly without lumps.

“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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