Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Chocolate Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Scrape the chocolate very fine and mix it with the egg yolks and powdered sugar.
Stir or beat the mixture until well combined, then gradually add the cream.
Pour the mixture into a saucepan and stir until it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon.
Remove from heat and pour into an earthen dish, then place it in a very cold place.
Add flavoring after boiling the cream.
Before freezing, strain the mixture through a fine sieve.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,466 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,404 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the cream as they heat and add richness to the custard.
- Cream
- Provides fat and body, giving the finished dessert a smooth, rich texture.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the mixture and dissolves easily into the yolks and cream.
- Chocolate
- Supplies the main flavor and adds fat that softens the frozen texture.
- Lemon zest
- Adds bright aroma that balances the sweetness of the chocolate.
The step that matters
Thickening the custard in the saucepan. Egg yolks thicken the cream as they heat, but they can scramble if the mixture gets too hot or is not stirred constantly. Stop when it coats the back of a spoon, since further heating causes curdling.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar, egg, chocolate):
- Vanillafits better
- Raspberryfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, egg, 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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