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Dessert

Plain Chocolate Icing

A simple chocolate icing made by melting chocolate with milk or cream, water, and sugar, then boiling and spreading over a cooled cake.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Plain Chocolate Icing

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the icing

  1. Melt the chocolate in a shallow pan over low heat, being careful not to scorch it.

  2. Stir in the milk or cream and water until well combined.

  3. Add the sugar and boil for about 5 minutes.

Ice and set the cake

  1. While hot, spread the icing evenly over the surface of a cooled cake.

  2. Layer with a second cake, alternating icing and cakes.

  3. Cover the top and sides with icing and place in a warm oven to harden.

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. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar 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

Chocolate
Provides the main flavour and, once melted and cooled, a firm glossy set.
Sugar
Sweetens the icing and, when boiled, thickens it so it can set on the cake.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and fat, making the icing smoother and softer.

The step that matters

Melting the chocolate gently. Chocolate scorches easily over direct heat, which makes it taste bitter and burnt. Low heat melts it smoothly and keeps its flavour intact.

“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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