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Dessert

Chocolate Sauce

A sauce made by melting chocolate and sugar in milk, then whisking into beaten egg and heating until thick.

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 Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Dissolve the chocolate and sugar in the milk over low heat.

  2. Whisk the mixture into the well-beaten egg.

  3. Return the mixture to the pan and stir until thick, but do not boil to avoid curdling.

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. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

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

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

Egg
Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it body without added starch.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that carries the chocolate and sugar and sets with the egg.
Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and dissolves into the milk to colour the sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps dissolve the chocolate into the milk.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture on the heat without boiling. Egg proteins set when heated, so the sauce thickens, but if it boils or gets too hot the eggs scramble and the sauce curdles. Stir gently and keep it below boiling.

“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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