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Dessert

Fudge Frosting

A chocolate fudge frosting made with butter, cocoa, confectioner's sugar, milk, vanilla, and a pinch of salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cocoa and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 357 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Fudge Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add cocoa, confectioner's sugar, salt, and milk to the melted butter.

  3. Heat the mixture to boiling point and boil for about 8 minutes.

  4. Remove from heat and beat until creamy.

  5. Stir in the vanilla and pour over the cake to a depth of ¼ inch.

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. Cocoa + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  5. Cocoa + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

Confectioner's sugar
Dissolves into the hot mixture to give the frosting its sweetness and smooth body.
Unsweetened powdered cocoa
Provides the chocolate flavor and deep color of the fudge frosting.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the frosting a smooth, soft texture.
Milk
Supplies liquid so the sugar and cocoa blend into a spreadable mixture.

The step that matters

Boil for about 8 minutes. Boiling concentrates the sugar mixture so the frosting sets to a fudgy texture when beaten; boiling too briefly leaves it runny, while boiling too long makes it stiff and grainy.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, milk, vanilla):

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Cocoathe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Hazelnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, vanilla. 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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