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Dessert

Chocolate Biscuits

Chocolate biscuits made with egg whites, grated chocolate, flour, and sugar, baked until crisp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 Biscuits

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the mixture

  1. Whisk the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  2. Gently mix in the grated chocolate, flour, and sugar.

  3. Drop small heaps of the mixture onto a sheet of paper.

Bake

  1. Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) for a few minutes.

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).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Chocolate + flourtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Egg whites
Whisked into a foam that traps air, lifting the biscuits and giving them a light structure.
Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and melts slightly into the batter, adding richness.
All-purpose flour
Gives the biscuits body, setting their shape as the proteins firm up in the oven.
Superfine sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the biscuits brown and crisp at the edges as they bake.

The step that matters

Whisk the egg whites to a stiff froth. Whisking the egg whites to a stiff froth matters because the trapped air is what lifts the mixture; under-whisked whites deflate and the biscuits spread flat, while over-whisked whites turn grainy and collapse when folded.

“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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