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Dessert

Chocolate Frosting

A sweet frosting made with egg whites, sugar, grated chocolate, and vanilla extract.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the frosting

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gradually add the sugar while continuing to beat until well combined.

  3. Fold in the grated chocolate and vanilla extract.

Finish the cake

  1. Spread the frosting thickly between layers and on top of the cake.

  2. For best results, use the frosting immediately after making.

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. Sugar + chocolatetop 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 that traps air, giving the frosting a light, airy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the frosting and helps stabilise the whipped egg white foam.
Grated chocolate
Adds chocolate flavour and richness to the frosting.
Vanilla extract
Adds aroma that rounds out the chocolate flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the sugar gradually while beating. Sugar added slowly dissolves into the egg whites and helps them form a stable, glossy foam. Adding it all at once can leave grainy, weeping or loose egg whites, so the frosting may not hold its shape on the cake.

“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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