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Chocolate Vanilla Creams

Chocolate vanilla cream balls made by boiling powdered sugar and cream, forming hot balls, coating with melted chocolate, and letting them harden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 Vanilla Creams

Ingredients

Directions

Make the centres

  1. Combine powdered sugar and cream in a saucepan.

  2. Boil for five minutes, then quickly form into balls while hot.

  3. If desired, add vanilla extract before boiling.

Coat and set

  1. Steam grated chocolate over a tea kettle until soft.

  2. Cover the balls with the melted chocolate and let them harden.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, 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

Powdered sugar
Provides sweetness and, once boiled with cream, a firm mass that holds its shape.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture for a soft, creamy centre.
Grated chocolate
Forms the coating, adding chocolate flavour and setting firm as it hardens.

The step that matters

Forming the balls while hot. The boiled sugar and cream mixture firms as it cools and becomes hard to shape, so the balls must be formed quickly while it is still hot.

“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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