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Dessert

Chocolate Sauce

A thickened chocolate sauce made with milk, chocolate, egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chocolate base

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Add the grated chocolate to the milk and stir until melted.

Thicken with egg yolks

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and mix in the sugar.

  2. Pour the hot milk mixture over the egg yolks, stirring constantly.

  3. Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook over low heat until thickened, stirring continuously.

Finish the sauce

  1. Remove from heat, strain the sauce, and let it cool.

  2. Once cool, stir in the vanilla.

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

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

  4. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries the chocolate flavour.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they cook, giving it a smooth, body-rich texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.
Chocolate
Provides the main chocolate flavour and dark colour of the sauce.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg yolk mixture over low heat. Egg proteins set and thicken the sauce, but if the heat is too high or the mixture is not stirred constantly, the yolks can scramble and turn grainy. Gentle, steady heat keeps the sauce smooth.

“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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