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Dessert

Chocolate Cream Frosting

A frosting made from egg white, cold water, confectioner's sugar, vanilla extract, and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and chocolate 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 Cream Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

Make the frosting

  1. Beat the egg white until stiff.

  2. Add cold water and mix.

  3. Gradually add confectioner's sugar until thick enough to spread.

  4. Flavor with vanilla.

Add the chocolate and finish

  1. Spread the frosting thickly on the cake.

  2. Grate the chocolate and dissolve it in a bowl over simmering water.

  3. Beat the chocolate until smooth and pour it over the cream frosting on the cake.

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. Vanilla + chocolatetop 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. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Egg white
Whipped to stiff foam, it gives the frosting its light, airy structure.
Confectioner's sugar
Stiffens the whipped foam into a frosting thick enough to spread, and adds sweetness.
Chocolate
Melted and poured over the frosting, it adds rich flavor and a glossy coating.

The step that matters

Gradually add confectioner's sugar. Adding sugar slowly to the whipped egg white lets the foam absorb it without collapsing. Too much sugar at once can deflate the foam and leave the frosting runny or grainy.

“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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