Why it works: Chocolate and coconut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,107 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓
Chocolate Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the cream
Dissolve the chocolate in the milk by warming it.
Mix the chocolate mixture with the cream and sugar.
Whip the mixture until it is quite stiff.
Set and serve
Pour into a perforated china mold lined with wet muslin.
Allow to stand for 12 hours.
Turn out, remove the muslin, and sprinkle with desiccated coconut.
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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Chocolate + coconuttop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,107 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,648 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,466 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,404 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Powdered chocolate
- Provides the chocolate flavour and colour of the cream.
- Double cream
- Provides richness and fat, giving the cream its body when whipped.
- Castor sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps balance the chocolate's bitterness.
- Milk
- Thins the melted chocolate so it blends smoothly into the cream.
The step that matters
Whip the mixture until it is quite stiff. Cream must be whipped enough for its fat network to trap air and hold shape in the mold. Under-whipping leaves it too loose to set, while over-whipping can turn it grainy or buttery.
Swap the coconut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chocolate, sugar, milk, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutthe original
- Strawberryfits about as well
- Raspberryfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, sugar, milk, cream. 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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