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Dessert

Chocolate Glaze

A simple chocolate glaze made from sugar, water, chocolate, and vanilla.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the glaze

  1. In a saucepan, combine sugar and water.

  2. Add grated chocolate and bring to a boil, cooking until almost at candy point.

  3. Remove from heat and flavor with vanilla.

  4. Let it cool slightly, then beat for a short time.

Finish

  1. Spread the glaze over 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).

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
Dissolves and sets into a glossy, sweet structure as the glaze cools and thickens.
Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and, once cooled and beaten, body and a smooth coating.
Water
Dissolves the sugar so it can be heated evenly before cooking toward candy stage.

The step that matters

Cooking to almost candy point. Sugar syrup that is cooked too far becomes hard and brittle when cooled, while too little cooking leaves the glaze runny. Stopping just short of candy point gives a glaze that sets soft and glossy.

“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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