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Dessert

Chocolate Sauce

A creamy sauce made from milk, chocolate, egg yolks, sugar, cream, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Chocolate Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chocolate base

  1. Boil the milk and grated chocolate for 5 minutes.

  2. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar and cream in a bowl.

  3. Pour the hot chocolate mixture over the egg mixture and strain.

Thicken and flavor

  1. Return the mixture to the heat and stir until thick like honey.

  2. Add vanilla extract to flavor.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that gives the sauce its body and smooth, creamy mouthfeel.
Grated chocolate
Provides the main chocolate flavor and helps thicken the sauce as it melts into the liquid.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as their proteins set with gentle heat, and add richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.
Rich cream
Adds fat for a silkier texture and a richer, rounder mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Thickening the mixture over heat. Once the custard base is back on the heat, keep stirring and avoid boiling. Egg yolks thicken by setting as they warm, and too much heat makes them scramble or curdle, leaving a grainy sauce.

“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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