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Drink

Chocolate

A chocolate beverage made by mixing grated chocolate, sugar, boiling water, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Chocolate

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, mix the grated chocolate and sugar.

  2. Wet the mixture with 1 tablespoon of boiling water and rub smooth with a spoon.

Make the drink

  1. Stir this into 1 cup of boiling water and let it boil once.

  2. Add 1 cup of good milk and let it boil once more.

  3. Serve immediately.

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

Grated chocolate
Provides the main flavour and body of the drink as it melts into the liquid.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the bitterness of the chocolate.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the chocolate flavour.

The step that matters

Rub the chocolate paste smooth before adding the water. Wetting the chocolate and sugar with a little boiling water and rubbing it smooth dissolves the sugar and melts the chocolate into a paste. Adding it in lumps to the liquid can leave gritty bits that do not blend evenly into the drink.

“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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