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Dessert

Boiled Chocolate Frosting

A chocolate frosting made by boiling chocolate with milk, sugar, cornstarch, salt, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Boiled Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt chocolate over hot water.

  2. Blend melted chocolate with warmed milk.

  3. Stir in sugar mixed with cornstarch and salt until well combined.

  4. Cook in a double boiler until thick like custard.

  5. Add vanilla and mix well.

  6. Cool and spread between layers of cake.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, 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

Chocolate
Provides the main flavor and body of the frosting.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the frosting a smooth texture.
Cornstarch
Thickens the mixture as it cooks into a custard-like consistency.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the chocolate and starch cook into a custard.

The step that matters

Cook in a double boiler until thick like custard. Gentle indirect heat keeps the milk and egg-free starch mixture from scorching on the bottom of the pan. Cornstarch needs to reach a simmer to fully thicken, so the cook should stir steadily and judge thickness by how it coats a spoon.

“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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