Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Chocolate Creams
Ingredients
Directions
Make the fondant
In a saucepan, combine powdered sugar and cream.
Boil for 5 minutes or until it hardens when dropped in cold water.
Stir until cool enough to shape into balls.
Coat and set
Grate the chocolate and steam it over a tea kettle until soft.
Dip the balls in the melted chocolate using a fork.
Set the coated balls in a cool place to harden.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,466 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,404 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Powdered sugar
- Dissolves into the cream to form a soft, sweet, shapeable mass.
- Cream
- Adds moisture and fat, giving the mixture a smooth, creamy texture.
- Chocolate
- Forms a thin coating that adds flavor and a firm outer shell when set.
The step that matters
Boiling the sugar and cream. The mixture must reach the point where it hardens when dropped in cold water. Boiling too little leaves the centers soft and hard to shape. Boiling too long makes them brittle and grainy as sugar recrystallizes and sets too firm.
“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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