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Dessert

Chocolate Frosting

A chocolate frosting made with sugar, chocolate, milk, butter, and optional cinnamon and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and vanilla 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 Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chocolate syrup

  1. In a saucepan, combine the sugar, scraped chocolate, salt, and cinnamon bark.

  2. Add the milk and butter, and cook without stirring until it reaches a fine thread consistency.

Cool and beat

  1. Remove from heat and let it cool.

  2. Once cool, beat the mixture until it becomes a thick cream.

  3. If using cinnamon, remove it before beating and add vanilla extract if desired.

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. Cinnamon + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

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

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

Granulated sugar
Dissolves to form the syrup and provides sweetness and the body of the frosting.
Scraped chocolate
Supplies chocolate flavour and cocoa fat that enriches the frosting.
Milk
Adds liquid that dissolves the sugar and gives the frosting a smooth, creamy texture.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the texture and makes the frosting smoother and richer.

The step that matters

Cook without stirring, then cool before beating. Stirring while the sugar syrup cooks can trigger crystal formation, leaving the frosting grainy. Cooking to the fine thread stage sets the sugar concentration, and cooling before beating lets the mixture thicken into a smooth cream instead of setting too hard or too soft.

“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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