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Dessert

Chocolate Puffs

Chocolate Puffs are airy sweet treats made from sugar, chocolate, and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 Puffs

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Beat and sift the sugar into a bowl.

  2. Scrape the finely grated chocolate into the sugar and mix well.

Make the meringue

  1. Beat the egg white until very frothy.

  2. Gradually add the sugar and chocolate mixture to the egg white, continuing to beat until stiff.

Shape and bake

  1. Spoon onto a baking paper and drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto it, each the size of a sixpence.

  2. 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

Egg white
Whipped into foam, it traps air and gives the puffs their light, crisp structure.
Double-refined sugar
Dissolves into the whipped egg white, adding sweetness and helping the foam stay stable.
Chocolate
Adds flavour and colour to the puffs, and its fine grating spreads it evenly through the mixture.

The step that matters

Beating the egg white until stiff. The egg white must be whipped to a firm foam before the sugar goes in. Adding sugar gradually keeps the foam stable, so the puffs hold their shape and rise rather than collapse.

“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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