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Dessert

Chocolate Frosting

A light chocolate frosting made with egg whites, powdered sugar, and grated chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Sugar and chocolate 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 Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the egg whites lightly; do not let them become white.

  2. Stir in the grated chocolate.

  3. Gradually add the powdered sugar while beating to mix well.

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. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + chocolatetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Provide structure and body that hold the frosting together and give it a smooth, spreadable texture.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and bulk, thickening the frosting as it dissolves into the whites.
Grated chocolate
Supplies chocolate flavor and fat, giving the frosting its color and richness.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites lightly. Overbeating egg whites turns them white and foamy, changing the frosting's texture and color. Beating just enough keeps them smooth and ready to combine evenly with the sugar and chocolate.

“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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