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Dessert

Chocolate Filling

A chocolate filling made from beaten egg whites, sugar, grated chocolate, vanilla, and a sugar icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla 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 Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Add sugar, grated chocolate, and vanilla to the egg whites and beat until well combined.

Make the icing and assemble

  1. Cook 1 cup of sugar with enough water to cover it until it thickens.

  2. Stir the thickened sugar into the well-beaten white of 1 egg.

  3. Spread the mixture between the layers and on top of the cake.

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. Chocolate + vanillatop 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).

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

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they give the filling its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, when cooked, thickens into the icing.
Grated chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and color to the filling.

The step that matters

Cooking the sugar and water until it thickens. Sugar syrup can crystallize or burn if it is stirred too early or cooked too far. Cooking it gently to the right thickness gives a smooth icing that spreads well.

“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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