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Drink

Spiced Chocolate

A warm chocolate drink spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, sweetened with sugar and topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Spiced Chocolate

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced Chocolate

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grate the chocolate.

  2. Boil the milk, reserving a little cold milk to moisten the chocolate.

  3. Mix the grated chocolate with the reserved cold milk until smooth.

Make and serve

  1. Add the cinnamon and nutmeg to the boiling milk.

  2. Stir in the chocolate mixture and sugar when the milk boils.

  3. Pour the spiced chocolate into cups and serve with whipped cream on top.

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.

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.

  1. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the chocolate dissolves into, giving the drink its body.
Chocolate
Provides the main flavour and richness, and thickens the drink as it melts.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the bitterness of the chocolate.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm aroma and a spiced flavour to the drink.

The step that matters

Mix the grated chocolate with the reserved cold milk until smooth.. Chocolate added to hot liquid without first being moistened can clump and seize. Blending it smooth with cold milk lets it disperse evenly when combined with the boiling milk.

“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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