Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Frosting

A chocolate frosting made by beating egg white with powdered sugar, melting chocolate with water, and combining.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Chocolate and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,404 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat two-thirds of a cup of powdered sugar into the unbeaten egg white.

  2. Scrape the chocolate and combine it with the remaining one-third cup of powdered sugar and boiling water in a small frying pan.

  3. Stir over medium heat until smooth and glossy.

  4. Stir the chocolate mixture into the beaten egg white and sugar.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Chocolate + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg white
Whipped with sugar to add airy volume and a light, spreadable body.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the frosting and thickens it as it dissolves into the egg white and chocolate.
Baker's chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and rich colour, and firms up as it cools.

The step that matters

Stirring the chocolate mixture into the beaten egg white. Adding warm chocolate too quickly or while the egg white is deflating can cause the frosting to lose volume and turn heavy. Fold it in gently so the foam stays intact.

“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.

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipesChocolate Drop CookiesChocolate Drop Cookies50 recipes