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Dessert

Chocolate Frosting

A chocolate frosting made by boiling sugar, milk, and cream of tartar, then adding butter, chocolate, and vanilla, and beating until smooth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

Make the frosting

  1. Boil the sugar, milk, and cream of tartar continuously for six minutes.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the butter, chocolate, and vanilla.

Beat and set

  1. Beat well, let cool, and beat again for a total of about one hour.

  2. To soften before use, place in a dish of hot 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 + 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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
Provides sweetness and, as it cools and crystallizes, the body of the frosting.
Milk
Dissolves the sugar and adds moisture and creaminess.
Cream of tartar
Acid that helps keep the sugar from forming a grainy texture.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Unsweetened chocolate
Supplies the chocolate flavor, color, and some fat.
Vanilla
Adds aroma that rounds out the chocolate flavor.

The step that matters

Beating while the mixture cools. Beating as the mixture cools breaks up sugar crystals, so the frosting stays smooth rather than grainy. Stopping the boil early or late also changes how firm the frosting sets.

“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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