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Dessert

Chocolate Cream a LA Colbert

A chilled chocolate cream dessert made with cream, sugar, chocolate, water, gelatin, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Chocolate Cream a LA Colbert

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chocolate cream

  1. Boil the cream with the sugar until reduced to 1 quart.

  2. Melt the chocolate over low heat in the water.

  3. Mix the melted chocolate with the cream and soaked gelatin.

  4. Strain the mixture through a cloth into a basin.

Set and finish

  1. Stir on ice until it begins to set, then fold in the whipped cream.

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

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

  2. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cream
Provides richness and body, giving the chocolate cream its smooth, fatty mouthfeel.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid cream into a soft, sliceable structure as it cools.
Chocolate
Gives the dish its chocolate flavour and adds firmness and fat to the set cream.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.
Whipped cream
Adds airiness and a lighter texture to the finished mixture.

The step that matters

Stir on ice until it begins to set. Gelatine sets quickly as it cools. Stop at the first sign of thickening and fold in the whipped cream promptly, because if the mixture sets fully it cannot be folded smoothly and will form lumps.

“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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