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Dessert

Chocolate

A chocolate-flavored meringue used as frosting between cake layers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the frosting

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Gently stir in the powdered sugar and grated chocolate until combined.

Assemble

  1. Spread the mixture between layers of cake.

  2. Bake the layers as desired.

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

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

  3. Egg + chocolatetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into stiff foam that gives the frosting its light, airy structure.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the frosting and dissolves easily into the whipped whites.
Grated sweet chocolate
Adds chocolate flavour and sweetness to the frosting.

The step that matters

Gently stir in the powdered sugar and grated chocolate. Folding rather than vigorous stirring keeps the air bubbles in the whipped egg whites, so the frosting stays light and does not deflate.

“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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