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Drink

Iced Cocoa

A chilled cocoa beverage made with sugar, cocoa, water, vanilla, milk, and ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cocoa and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 357 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Iced Cocoa

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cocoa syrup

  1. In a saucepan, combine sugar, cocoa, and water.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil and let it boil well.

  3. Remove from heat and let it cool.

Assemble and serve

  1. In a tumbler, add 2 tablespoons of the cocoa mixture over cracked ice.

  2. Fill the tumbler with cold milk.

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 + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sugar
Sweetens the drink and, dissolved into the mixture, thickens the cocoa syrup slightly.
Cocoa
Provides the chocolate flavor and color.
Cold milk
Makes up the body of the drink and dilutes the cocoa syrup to a drinkable strength.

The step that matters

Boiling the cocoa mixture. Cocoa powder needs to be fully dissolved and heated so it blends smoothly without grittiness. Letting the mixture cool before adding it to the cold milk keeps the drink from melting the ice too quickly.

Swap the cocoa

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vanilla, milk. 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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