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Dessert

Chocolate Icing

A simple chocolate icing made by boiling sugar and water, adding vanilla and melted chocolate, then beating to desired consistency.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 Icing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine sugar and boiling water in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the mixture.

  3. While beating, add melted grated chocolate.

  4. Continue beating until desired consistency.

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).

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

Granulated sugar
Dissolves into the boiling water to form a syrup and adds sweetness.
Grated chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and fat, and thickens the icing as it cools and is beaten.
Boiling water
Dissolves the sugar and supplies the liquid that gives the icing its moisture.
Vanilla extract
Adds aroma that rounds out the chocolate flavor.

The step that matters

Continue beating until desired consistency. The icing thickens as it cools and is beaten. Stop when it reaches the texture you want, because overbeating can make it stiff and grainy.

“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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