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Boiled Chocolate Frosting

A simple frosting made by boiling sugar, sweet milk, and Baker's chocolate until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Boiled Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine the sugar, sweet milk, and Baker's chocolate.

  2. Mix well and bring to a boil.

  3. Boil until the mixture reaches the proper thickness.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

White sugar
Sweetens the frosting and, as it thickens, helps give it body.
Sweet milk
Provides the liquid that dissolves the sugar and gives a creamy texture.
Baker's chocolate
Supplies the chocolate flavor and fat that give the frosting richness.

The step that matters

Boil until the proper thickness. As water evaporates, the sugar concentration rises and the frosting thickens. Stopping too early leaves it runny, while boiling too long can make it stiff once cooled.

“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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