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Dessert

Chocolate Biscuits

Chocolate biscuits made with eggs, chocolate, sugar, flour, baked until done.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chocolate Biscuits

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Separate the eggs, placing the yolks of 4 eggs in one bowl and the whites of all 6 in another.

Make the batter

  1. Add the bruised chocolate and fine sugar to the yolks, and beat well together.

  2. Whip the egg whites to a froth and gently fold them into the yolk mixture.

  3. Gradually stir in the flour until well combined.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto buttered white paper or small paper molds.

  2. Sprinkle a little fine sugar on top and bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chocolate + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,543 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air for lift, while yolks add richness and structure as the batter sets.
Chocolate
Adds flavor and a rich, dense texture to the biscuit.
Fine sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps give the biscuit a crisp, browned top.
Flour
Provides structure so the batter sets into a biscuit as it bakes.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold the air that makes the biscuits light. Folding gently keeps that air in; vigorous stirring deflates the foam and leaves the biscuits dense.

“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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