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Dessert

Chocolate Icing

A chocolate icing made with chocolate, egg whites, powdered sugar, and boiling water.

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 Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat 1⅔ cups of powdered sugar into the unbeaten egg whites.

  2. Scrape the chocolate and combine it with the remaining ⅓ cup of sugar and boiling water in a pan.

Make the icing

  1. Stir over medium heat until smooth and glossy.

  2. Stir the chocolate mixture into the beaten egg whites and sugar.

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

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

  3. Chocolate + eggtop 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 foam that gives the icing lightness and a soft, airy structure.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the icing and, with the egg whites, thickens it and gives it body.
Baker's chocolate
Supplies the chocolate flavor and richness and melts into a smooth, glossy base.

The step that matters

Stir the chocolate over medium heat until smooth. Chocolate can scorch or seize when overheated, turning grainy and dull. Stirring constantly over moderate heat melts it evenly so it blends smoothly into the icing.

“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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