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Dessert

Chocolate Icing

A glossy chocolate icing made by boiling sugar and water, whisking egg white, and folding in melted chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Chocolate Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil sugar and water together until syrup strings when poured from a spoon.

Make the icing

  1. Stir grated chocolate into the stiff egg white with cream of tartar.

  2. Slowly pour boiling syrup onto the egg, beating hard continuously.

  3. Beat until the mixture cools and thickens.

Finish

  1. Spread icing between cake layers and 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.

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. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. 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

Sugar
Dissolves into the syrup that gives the icing its sweetness and body.
Egg white
Whips into a foam that gives the icing its light, airy structure.
Unsweetened chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and firms the icing as it cools.
Cream of tartar
Stabilizes the egg white foam so it holds its shape while beaten.

The step that matters

Pour the syrup slowly while beating constantly. Pouring hot syrup too fast or stopping to beat can cook or clump the egg white rather than blending it smoothly. Steady, continuous beating lets the hot syrup cook the egg white gently into a uniform, glossy icing that thickens as it cools.

“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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