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Dessert

Chocolate Cream Frosting

A light chocolate frosting made with egg white, confectioners' sugar, vanilla, and melted German sweet chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Cream Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

Make the frosting

  1. Combine the egg white and water in a bowl.

  2. Beat until stiff peaks form.

  3. Gradually add confectioners' sugar until the mixture is thick enough to spread.

  4. Stir in the vanilla extract.

Chocolate and finish

  1. Spread the frosting on the cake.

  2. Melt the German sweet chocolate with the boiling water, then beat until smooth.

  3. Pour the chocolate mixture over the frosting.

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. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Egg white
Whipped into a foam that gives the frosting its light, airy structure.
Confectioners' sugar
Dissolves into the foam to add sweetness and thicken it so it spreads.
German sweet chocolate
Supplies the chocolate flavor and dark color of the frosting.

The step that matters

Gradually add the confectioners' sugar. Adding sugar slowly lets it dissolve into the whipped egg white without collapsing the foam. Adding it all at once can deflate the foam and make the texture uneven, while adding it gradually lets you stop once the frosting is thick enough to spread.

“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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