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Dessert

French Stock Coating

A chocolate coating made with egg white, icing sugar, chocolate, water, and optional vanilla, used to coat cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

French Stock Coating

Ingredients

Directions

Melt the chocolate

  1. Cut the chocolate into small pieces.

  2. Place the chocolate pieces in a pan.

  3. Place this pan inside another pan filled with boiling water.

  4. Add water to the chocolate.

  5. Add sifted icing sugar to the chocolate.

  6. Stir until perfectly smooth.

Keep the coating fluid

  1. If the mixture is too thin, allow it to cool slightly.

  2. Keep the mixture in the hot water pan to prevent it from firming up.

  3. Stir occasionally.

Coat and set

  1. Dip the cream quickly into the coating.

  2. Lift the cream out with a fork.

  3. Allow excess chocolate to drip off.

  4. Place the coated cream on paper until set.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Chocolate
Forms the coating that sets firm as it cools, giving gloss and a rich body.
Icing sugar
Sweetens the coating and helps it stay smooth as it is stirred.

The step that matters

Dipping while the coating is fluid. Chocolate thickens quickly as it cools and sets firm when chilled. Keeping it warm in the water bath keeps it fluid, so dipping gives a thin, even coat. If it cools too far it becomes thick and clumpy.

“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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