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 Frosting
Ingredients
Directions
Boil sugar and water in a saucepan for a few minutes.
Add grated chocolate and boil for a few minutes longer.
Cool the mixture before spreading it on the cake.
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.
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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
- Sweetens the frosting and, as the syrup boils and cools, helps it thicken.
- Grated chocolate
- Melts into the syrup to add chocolate flavor and richness as the frosting sets.
The step that matters
Cool the mixture before spreading it on the cake.. The frosting thickens as it cools. Spreading it while still hot can make it runny and cause it to slide off or soak into the cake, so let it cool until it is spreadable.
“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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