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Drink

Cocoa and Chocolate

A warm beverage made by mixing cocoa, milk, water, and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cocoa and chocolate work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 165 recipes. Both carry 2-ethyl-3,6-dimethylpyrazine, which smells roasted, nutty. The science ↓

Cocoa and Chocolate

6 servings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cocoa base

  1. Mix cocoa with a little cold milk in a breakfast cup to form a smooth paste.

  2. Stir in equal amounts of boiling water and boiling milk.

  3. Sweeten to taste and serve.

Make the chocolate version

  1. Dissolve scraped chocolate in 1 pint of boiling water and boil for 15 minutes.

  2. Add 1 quart of rich milk, let it scald, and serve hot.

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. Cocoa + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-ethyl-3,6-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  2. Cocoa + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar 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

Cocoa
Provides the chocolate flavour and colour of the drink.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body, softening the bitterness of the cocoa.
Scraped chocolate
Melts into the boiling water to give a richer chocolate flavour and body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the bitterness of the cocoa and chocolate.

The step that matters

Make a smooth paste with the cocoa. Cocoa powder does not dissolve in liquid on its own. Mixing it first with a little cold milk wets each particle and prevents lumps, so the cocoa blends evenly into the hot liquid.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, chocolate):

  1. Peanutfits about as well
  2. Cocoathe original
  3. Almondfits about as well
  4. Hazelnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, 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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