Why it works: Cocoa and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 357 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓
Iced Cocoa
Ingredients
Directions
Make the cocoa stronger than usual.
Cool the cocoa and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.
Add chopped ice just before serving.
Stir in a little vanilla before serving.
Top with sweetened whipped cream.
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.
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Cocoa + vanillatop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together357 recipes
Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
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Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,301 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
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Cocoa + creamtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together304 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Vanilla and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,301 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
Swap the cocoa
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vanilla, cream):
- Almondfits better
- Chestnutfits better
- Hazelnutfits better
- Cocoathe original
Fit is the average pairing score against vanilla, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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