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Dessert

French Chocolate Creams

A dessert of meringue balls coated in melted chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and chocolate 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 ↓

French Chocolate Creams

Ingredients

Directions

Make the meringue

  1. Break the egg whites into a bowl and add an equal amount of water.

  2. Stir in confectioner's sugar until the mixture is stiff enough to roll into balls.

  3. Shape the mixture into small cone-shaped balls and place them on a dish to dry.

Coat and set

  1. Melt the Baker's chocolate in an earthen dish in the stove.

  2. Using a fork, dip each ball in the melted chocolate and place it on oiled paper.

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. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Egg + chocolatetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whip and set to form the light, airy structure of the meringue.
Confectioner's sugar
Sweetens the meringue and stiffens it so it holds its shape.
Baker's chocolate
Forms a melted coating that adds bittersweet flavour and a glossy finish.

The step that matters

Stiffening the mixture with sugar. The mixture must be stiff enough to hold a shape before drying. Sugar added gradually to whipped egg white stabilises the foam; if it is under-whipped or the sugar is added too fast, the balls will slump and not hold their cone shape.

“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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