Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Creams

Chocolate creams are made by melting chocolate, mixing with powdered sugar, water, cornstarch, vanilla, then rolling in melted chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Creams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Melt the Baker's chocolate.

Make the centres

  1. In a saucepan, combine powdered sugar, water, and cornstarch.

  2. Boil for 10 minutes, then add vanilla extract.

  3. Beat the mixture until stiff.

Coat and set

  1. Roll the mixture in melted chocolate kept warm over steam.

  2. Place on a buttered plate and let cool.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Vanilla + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Chocolate + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,543 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Powdered sugar
Provides the sweet, bulk body of the creams and sets firm as it cools.
Cornstarch
Thickens the boiled syrup so the mixture can be beaten into a stiff, sliceable paste.
Baker's chocolate
Forms the melted outer coating that gives the creams their rich flavour and snap.

The step that matters

Boiling the sugar mixture. Boiling for the full 10 minutes cooks the sugar and starch so the mixture thickens and can be beaten stiff. Undercooked mixtures stay soft and won't hold their shape when rolled in chocolate.

“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.

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipes