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Chocolate Pastils

Chocolate Pastils are small, flat chocolate confections made by mixing melted chocolate with sugar and water, then drying on parchment.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and sugar 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 ↓

Chocolate Pastils

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chocolate paste

  1. Melt the chocolate in a pan over low heat, stirring with a spoon.

  2. Dissolve the sugar in a little clear water.

  3. Combine the melted chocolate with the sugar mixture.

  4. If the mixture is too thick, add more water until it reaches a spreadable consistency.

Shape and dry

  1. On a sheet of parchment paper, drop small, round, flat drops of the mixture, about the size of a sixpence.

  2. Let the drops dry naturally in a cupboard.

  3. Once dry, remove the pastils from the paper and store them in boxes.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Chocolate
Forms the main body and flavor of the pastils as it sets when dry.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and, once dissolved and dried, helps the drops hold their firm shape.

The step that matters

Adding water to the sugar and chocolate mixture. Water thins the mixture to a spreadable consistency, but too much makes the drops spread and dry slowly. Adding it a little at a time keeps the drops small, round and flat.

“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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