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Dessert

Chocolate Sweetmeats

A baked confection of chocolate, marzipan, eggs, rose water, sugar, cinnamon, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,287 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Chocolate Sweetmeats

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the chocolate paste

  1. Break the chocolate into warm water and heat until dissolved.

  2. Mix the melted chocolate with marzipan paste and add vanilla or cinnamon if desired.

  3. Spread the mixture on wafer paper in desired shapes.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until done.

  5. If the sweetmeats are not dark enough, add a little ammonium.

Make the sugar paste and finish

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in rose water, sifted sugar, powdered cinnamon, and enough flour to form a paste.

  2. Roll out the paste thin and cut into shapes.

  3. Place the shapes on paper and bake until done, then remove from paper and keep dry.

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. Vanilla + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Vanilla and sugar 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

Marzipan paste
Provides the main body and almond flavour that holds the sweetmeats together.
Chocolate
Adds rich flavour and colour to the chocolate mixture when melted into water.
Eggs
Bind the paste and add structure and moisture to the mixture.
Sifted sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the paste bake to a firm, dry texture.
Flour
Gives the paste enough body to roll out and cut into shapes.

The step that matters

Bake until done and keep dry. Baking sets the paste and drives off moisture; if the shapes are under-baked or stored damp they can soften and lose their crisp texture.

“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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