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Chocolate Frosting for Cakes

A sweet chocolate frosting made from sugar, milk, butter, and chocolate, thickened with boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chocolate Frosting for Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine sugar, milk, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Boil for 7 minutes.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a bowl.

  4. Mix the chocolate with a little boiling water to form a paste. Add the paste to the bowl.

  5. Stir until the mixture thickens.

  6. If it becomes too hard to spread, add a little more boiling 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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Provides sweetness and, when boiled with milk, the body that sets the frosting.
Milk
Dissolves the sugar and adds moisture and softness to the frosting.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture and a softer bite.
Plain chocolate
Supplies the chocolate flavour and dark colour of the frosting.

The step that matters

Stir until the mixture thickens. Boiled sugar mixtures set as they cool and thicken. Stirring during this stage keeps the frosting smooth and prevents large sugar crystals from forming, which would make it grainy.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, butter, chocolate):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Peppermintfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, butter, chocolate. 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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