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Drink

Italian Chocolate

A hot chocolate made with eggs, sugar, cocoa, boiling water, and served with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Italian Chocolate

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a bowl, cream the yolks of the eggs with the sugar until light and foamy.

  2. Dissolve the cocoa powder in 1 cup of boiling water.

  3. Add 5 more cups of boiling water and a pinch of salt.

  4. Bring the mixture to a hard boil.

Combine and serve

  1. Pour the hot mixture over the egg and sugar mixture while stirring briskly.

  2. Pour the chocolate mixture into cups.

  3. Serve immediately topped with a spoonful of whipped cream.

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

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

  2. Cocoa powder + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together826 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Sugar + cocoa powdertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,920 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 + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
Egg yolks add richness and thicken the drink as they warm.
Sugar
Sweetens the drink and helps the yolks whip into a light, foamy base.
Unsweetened cocoa powder
Provides the chocolate flavor and color.
Boiling water
Dissolves the cocoa and forms the liquid body of the drink.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot mixture over the eggs while stirring briskly. Stirring spreads the heat quickly so the yolks warm gradually. If hot liquid hits the yolks in one spot, they can scramble and curdle instead of thickening smoothly.

“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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