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Dessert

Chocolate Milk Frosting

A frosting made from sugar, cornstarch, hot milk, chocolate, and butter.

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 Milk Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

Make the frosting

  1. Mix the sugar with the cornstarch.

  2. Stir in the hot milk.

  3. Add the shaved chocolate and boil without stirring until a little of the mixture forms a soft ball in cold water.

  4. Remove from the heat, add the butter, and beat the mixture until creamy.

Spread

  1. Spread immediately.

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. Chocolate + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,543 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 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

Sugar
Provides sweetness and, when boiled, forms the body of the frosting.
Cornstarch
Thickens the mixture and helps it stay smooth and spreadable.
Hot milk
Dissolves the sugar and adds moisture for a creamy texture.
Chocolate
Supplies the chocolate flavor and color.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer, smoother finish.

The step that matters

Boil without stirring until a soft ball forms. Sugar syrup must reach the right concentration to set into a creamy frosting rather than a grainy or runny one. Stirring during boiling can encourage sugar crystals to form, leading to graininess. Testing a drop in cold water shows when the syrup is ready.

“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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