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Drink

Cocoa From Cocoa-shells

A beverage made by boiling cocoa shells with egg, vanilla, cream, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cocoa and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 357 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Cocoa From Cocoa-shells

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the washed cocoa shells in a coffee pot.

  2. Pour the hot water over the cocoa shells.

  3. Add the egg shell and the egg white.

  4. Boil for 10 to 15 minutes.

  5. Flavor with vanilla extract.

  6. Serve with cream and sugar to 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. Cocoa + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

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

Vanilla and sugar 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

Cocoa shells
Provide the chocolate flavour and body of the drink as hot water extracts them.
Egg white
Helps clear the drink by binding fine particles that rise to the surface as it heats.
Vanilla extract
Adds a sweet, aromatic note that rounds out the cocoa flavour.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, vanilla, cream, sugar):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vanilla, cream, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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