Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Creams

Chocolate cream balls coated in chocolate, made from boiled sugar, milk, and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and chocolate 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 Creams

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fondant

  1. Boil the loaf sugar with enough milk or cream until it reaches the proper consistency.

  2. Test by dropping a little on a tin plate. If it turns white, remove from heat.

  3. Stir until it creams.

  4. Roll into balls when stiff enough.

  5. Dust a large plate with icing sugar. Place the balls on it to set.

Coat and set

  1. Grate the chocolate into a basin. Add 2 teaspoons of icing sugar.

  2. Place the basin over a saucepan of boiling water. Cover with a plate. Steam until the chocolate melts, about 1 to 4 hours.

  3. Add 3 teaspoons of milk. Beat until smooth.

  4. Dip each ball into the melted chocolate using a skewer. Place on greased paper.

  5. Let them set for 12 hours.

  6. Optionally flavor with vanilla or other essences.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Milk + chocolatetop 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

Loaf sugar
Forms the creamy, firm fondant base that the balls are shaped from.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture so the boiled sugar can be worked into a smooth, creamy mass.
Chocolate
Forms the melted coating that gives the balls their flavour and glossy shell.
Icing sugar
Adds sweetness and thickens the melted chocolate for dipping.

The step that matters

Stirring the boiled sugar until it creams. Sugar syrup must be cooled and agitated at the right point so it crystallises into a fine, smooth fondant. Removing it too early or stirring at the wrong stage can leave it grainy or runny, so the balls will not hold their shape.

“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.

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipesChocolate Drop CookiesChocolate Drop Cookies50 recipes