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Dessert

Chocolate Glaze or Boiled Icing

A sweet glaze made from sugar, water, chocolate, eggs, and vanilla, used to coat cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 Glaze or Boiled Icing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the sugar and water in a deep saucepan for five minutes.

  2. Add the grated chocolate and stir until combined.

  3. When a drop in cold water sets hard, stir in the eggs rapidly while beating continuously.

  4. Cook for about five more minutes, stirring constantly.

  5. Flavor with vanilla and beat while cooling.

  6. Spread or pour over sheets of cake.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Sugar
Dissolves into the syrup that gives the glaze its body and sweetness.
Grated chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and body to the glaze as it melts into the syrup.
Eggs
Thicken the mixture as they cook and add richness to the glaze.

The step that matters

Stirring in the eggs. Eggs must be added rapidly while beating continuously so they blend smoothly into the hot syrup instead of scrambling. The syrup should first reach the hard-ball stage, shown when a drop sets hard in cold water, so the glaze firms properly as it cools.

“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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