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Dessert

Chocolate Filling

A chocolate filling for cakes made by melting chocolate, whisking egg whites with powdered sugar, then folding in the chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Melt the grated chocolate over boiling water.

  2. Beat the egg whites to a foam.

  3. Gradually add the powdered sugar while beating continuously.

  4. Continue beating until stiff enough to stand alone.

  5. Gradually add the melted chocolate, beating constantly.

Fill and finish

  1. Fill the cake with this mixture.

  2. Ice the top with Chocolate Icing (see recipe).

  3. Alternatively, mix 4 ounces of sugar and 1 teaspoon of vanilla into the melted chocolate, omitting the eggs.

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Egg whites
Whipped into a foam to create an airy, stable structure that lightens the filling.
Grated chocolate
Melted to give the filling its chocolate flavour and a smooth, rich body.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves into the whipped whites, adding sweetness and helping them hold their stiff structure.

The step that matters

Continue beating until stiff enough to stand alone. Egg whites must be whipped until they form stiff peaks; under-beaten whites stay loose and collapse when the melted chocolate is folded in, leaving a runny filling.

“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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