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Dessert

A Delicious Chocolate Icing

A chocolate icing made by boiling egg, sugar, chocolate, and milk, then adding vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

A Delicious Chocolate Icing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the beaten egg, sugar, grated chocolate, and milk in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the mixture until it thickens.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla extract.

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. Sugar + chocolatetop 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

Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it thicken as it cooks, giving the icing body.
Sugar
Sweetens the icing and helps give it a smooth, glossy texture once cooled.
Unsweetened chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and deep colour of the icing.
Milk
Adds liquid that dissolves the sugar and carries the chocolate into a spreadable mixture.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until it thickens. Boiling cooks the egg and dissolves the sugar, and the mixture thickens as it reaches the right consistency. Undercooking leaves it thin and runny, while overcooking can make it stiff and grainy once it sets.

“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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