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Dessert

Chocolate Cbackers

Chocolate crackers made from bread or cracker crumbs, chocolate, allspice, molasses, butter, water, and sugar, baked and iced with chocolate icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chocolate Cbackers

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Combine bread or cracker crumbs, chocolate, allspice, molasses, baking soda, butter, water, and sugar in a large bowl.

  2. Mix until a dough forms that is nearly as stiff as bread dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough and cut into shapes using a regular cutter.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

Finish

  1. Once baked, ice with chocolate icing.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Allspice + molassestop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,508 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Bread or cracker crumbs
Provide the bulk and structure that hold the dough together for cutting.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and dark color, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda.
Butter
Adds fat, which tenderizes the crackers and gives a rich flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crackers brown during baking.
Chocolate
Adds deep chocolate flavor and color to the crackers.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lightens the texture and deepens color.

The step that matters

Mixing to a stiff dough. The dough should be nearly as stiff as bread dough so it holds its cut shapes. A wetter dough spreads during baking and loses its outline.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, chocolate, molasses, butter, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, chocolate, molasses, butter, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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