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Cayuga Chocolate

A chocolate beverage made with unsweetened chocolate, eggs, sugar, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Cayuga Chocolate

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chocolate

  1. Pour boiling water over the chocolate pieces in a saucepan.

  2. Stir over low heat until smooth.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolk and part of the sugar, mixing thoroughly.

  4. Slowly mix this into the scalding milk and let it stand over boiling water for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the egg white to stiff peaks and add the tablespoon of sugar.

  2. Serve the chocolate with a teaspoon of the froth on top of each cup.

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).

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

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Unsweetened chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and the body of the drink.
Egg yolk
Thickens the chocolate mixture slightly and adds richness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base, giving a smooth, creamy texture.
Egg white
Beaten to stiff peaks, it forms a light froth for the top.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk mixture to the milk. Stirring the egg yolk into the hot milk slowly, with the chocolate already smooth, helps it blend evenly. Adding it too fast can cause the yolk to curdle or form lumps, while gentle heating thickens it smoothly.

“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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