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Chocolate Cream Icing

A sweet icing made from sugar syrup, stiffened egg whites, and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and pineapple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 911 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Chocolate Cream Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the sugar, hot water, and cream of tartar until it reaches the 'hair' stage.

Make the icing

  1. Beat the egg whites until very stiff.

  2. Slowly pour the syrup over the egg whites while beating continuously until thick enough to spread.

  3. Flavor the mixture with vanilla, lemon, and pineapple extracts.

Make the chocolate and finish

  1. In a separate pan, mix the grated chocolate, sugar, and cold water.

  2. Stir over heat until smooth and glossy.

  3. Cool the chocolate mixture slowly and then mix it well with the white icing.

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 + pineappletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together911 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

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

Granulated sugar
Sweetens the icing and, boiled into a syrup, gives the icing its body.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that gives the icing its light, airy structure.
Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and color of the icing.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the syrup, helping it stay smooth and stabilizing the whipped egg whites.

The step that matters

Pouring the syrup into the egg whites. The syrup must be hot and poured slowly in a thin stream while beating constantly. Pouring too fast or letting the syrup cool can deflate the foam or cook the whites unevenly, so the icing will not thicken properly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream, egg, vanilla, pineapple, chocolate):

  1. Strawberryfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, egg, vanilla, pineapple, chocolate. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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