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Dessert

Chocolate Frosting

A sweet frosting made by boiling sugar, milk, and cream of tartar, then adding butter, chocolate, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

Make the frosting

  1. Boil the sugar, milk, and cream of tartar continuously for six minutes.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the butter, chocolate, and vanilla. Beat well.

  3. Let cool.

  4. Beat again.

  5. The total beating time should be about one hour.

Store and soften

  1. Store until needed.

  2. To soften, place in a dish of hot water.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

Sugar
Sweetens the frosting and helps it set firm as it cools and is beaten.
Milk
Dissolves the sugar and gives the frosting a soft, creamy body.
Cream of tartar
A mild acid that helps keep the boiled sugar smooth rather than grainy.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, spreadable texture.
Unsweetened chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and deep color.

The step that matters

Beat after cooling. Beating while the mixture cools breaks the sugar into very fine crystals, which gives the frosting a smooth, creamy texture instead of a grainy one. Beating too early or too little can leave it gritty or too soft.

“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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