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Dessert

Chocolate Syrup

A thick chocolate syrup made by boiling water, chocolate powder, sugar, and caramel coloring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and sugar 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 Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil 1 pint of cold water in a copper boiling pan or enamelled saucepan.

  2. Gradually add ½ pound of unsweetened chocolate powder, stirring to form a creamy paste without lumps.

  3. Add 2 quarts of cold water and 5 pounds of granulated white sugar, mixing well.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly to prevent burning.

  5. Boil for 5 minutes, then remove from heat and strain through muslin or cheesecloth.

Finish

  1. Once cold, stir in 1 ounce of caramel coloring.

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. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Unsweetened chocolate powder
Supplies the chocolate flavor and the dark body of the syrup once stirred into a paste.
Granulated white sugar
Provides sweetness and, when dissolved and boiled, the thick texture of the syrup.
Caramel coloring
Deepens the color of the finished syrup.

The step that matters

Stirring while the mixture comes to a boil. Sugar and cocoa solids settle on the bottom of the pan and scorch easily under direct heat. Constant stirring keeps them suspended and evenly heated, preventing a burnt taste and dark specks.

“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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