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Drink

Brandy Cocoa

A warm drink made with cocoa, sugar, milk, salt, boiling water, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cocoa and milk work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 643 recipes. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Brandy Cocoa

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, mix cocoa, sugar, and salt, adding enough boiling water to make a smooth paste.

  3. Add the remaining boiling water and boil for one minute.

  4. Pour the mixture into the scalded milk.

  5. Add the brandy and beat for two minutes using a hand mixer.

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. Cocoa + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  4. Cocoa + brandytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Cocoa
Provides the chocolate flavor and color of the drink.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and gives the drink its body and richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the cocoa.
Brandy
Adds aroma and warmth to the finished drink.

The step that matters

Making the smooth paste. Cocoa and sugar clump easily when dry. Mixing them with a little boiling water first dissolves the sugar and wets the cocoa particles, so they blend into the milk without lumps.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, brandy):

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Cocoathe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Walnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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