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Dessert

Chocolate Squares

Chocolate squares are a baked dessert made with butter, sugar, chocolate, flour, nuts, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla 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 Squares

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Soften the butter and cream it with the brown sugar and salt.

  2. Melt the chocolate and add it to the mixture along with the beaten egg.

  3. Sift in the flour and fold in the chopped nut meats.

  4. Spread the mixture evenly in a pan lined with parchment paper.

Bake and cut

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until done.

  2. Cut into squares and remove from the pan immediately.

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 + vanillatop 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps make the squares tender.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps set the squares as they bake.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, keeping the squares soft and chewy.
Chocolate
Adds deep chocolate flavour and extra fat to the batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the squares together.
Nut meats
Add crunch and a toasty, nutty flavour against the soft batter.

The step that matters

Bake until done in a slow oven. The squares keep firming as they cool. Overbaking dries them out, while underbaking leaves the centre wet and unset, so the bake should stop once the centre is set.

“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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