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Dessert

Chocolate Chips

Chocolate chips made by boiling sugar, water, and cream of tartar, then adding vanilla, cooling, cutting, and dipping in melted chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and chocolate 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 Chips

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil sugar, water, and cream of tartar without stirring until syrup is brittle when dropped in cold water.

  2. Remove from heat, add vanilla, and pour into a pan or on a marble slab.

Shape and finish

  1. When cool, fold in the edges and roll out thinly with a rolling pin.

  2. Cut into strips 2 inches long and 1 inch wide.

  3. Dip strips into melted chocolate or chocolate fondant.

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. Vanilla + chocolatetop 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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

  5. 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
Forms the syrup base that hardens into a brittle, crisp candy when cooled.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the syrup, helping prevent sugar crystals from forming and keeping the texture smooth.
Chocolate
Coats the strips, adding a rich flavor and a sweet, contrasting outer layer.

The step that matters

Boiling the syrup without stirring. Stirring can trigger sugar crystallization, making the syrup grainy instead of smooth and glassy. The syrup must reach the brittle stage, so the candy sets crisp rather than soft or sticky.

“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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