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Dessert

Chocolate Icing

A sweet icing made from beaten egg whites, sugar, and grated chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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 ↓

Chocolate Icing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  2. Gradually add the white sugar while beating hard.

  3. Add grated chocolate according to your taste.

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
Whipped into a stiff foam that gives the icing its light, airy structure.
White sugar
Sweetens the icing and stabilises the whipped foam as it dissolves into it.
Grated chocolate
Adds chocolate flavour and colour to the icing.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to a stiff froth. Egg whites must be whipped until they hold stiff peaks, since their protein network traps air and gives the icing its volume. Under-whipped whites stay runny and deflate, and grease or yolk residue in the bowl can prevent them from whipping properly.

“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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