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Drink

For Chocolate

A hot chocolate beverage made with melted chocolate, sugar, salt, boiling water, and milk.

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

For Chocolate

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chocolate

  1. Melt the chocolate in a small saucepan over hot water.

  2. Add the sugar and salt to the melted chocolate, then gradually stir in the boiling water until smooth.

  3. Place the mixture on the stove and boil for one minute.

Combine and serve

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Add the chocolate mixture to the scalded milk and stir well.

  3. Serve in chocolate cups with whipped cream.

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. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Chocolate
Provides the main cocoa flavour and body of the drink.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mellows the chocolate into a smooth drink.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Stirring the water into the melted chocolate until smooth. Chocolate seizes and turns grainy if liquid is added too quickly or unevenly, so adding the boiling water gradually while stirring keeps the mixture smooth before it joins the milk.

“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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