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Dessert

Chocolate Frosting

A chocolate frosting made with grated chocolate, sugar, egg yolk, and sweet milk.

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 ↓

Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine grated chocolate, sugar, egg yolk, and sweet milk in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until the mixture reaches the soft ball stage (it will candy when dropped in cold water).

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. Sugar + eggtop 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

Grated chocolate
Supplies the chocolate flavor and fat that give the frosting its richness.
Sugar
Sweetens the frosting and, as it cooks, sets into a firm, smooth-textured coating.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps emulsify the fat and liquid into a smooth mixture.
Sweet milk
Liquid that dissolves the sugar and carries the chocolate through cooking.

The step that matters

Cook to the soft ball stage. The soft ball stage depends on sugar concentration reaching a set point. Stopping early leaves frosting runny; cooking too long makes it hard and grainy as it cools.

“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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