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Dessert

Chocolate Kisses

Chocolate kisses are made by mixing sifted sugar and chocolate with egg whites, then baking until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 Kisses

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Mix and shape

  1. Finely sift the sugar and chocolate together.

  2. Mix with the beaten egg whites until frothy.

  3. Drop spoonfuls onto buttered paper.

Bake

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until set.

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. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Chocolate + eggtop 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

Sugar
Adds sweetness and bulk, and helps stabilize the beaten egg white foam.
Chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and color of the kisses.
Egg whites
Beaten into a foam that gives the kisses their light, airy structure as they set.

The step that matters

Bake in a slow oven until set. A low, gentle oven sets the egg white proteins slowly, so the kisses dry and firm without browning or puffing and collapsing. Too hot an oven can color them quickly or cause cracks.

“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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