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Drink

Chocolate and Cocoa

A hot chocolate drink made with water, chocolate, milk, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and sugar 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 and Cocoa

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chocolate

  1. Boil 1 quart of water in a pot.

  2. Add 3 tablespoons of scraped chocolate and boil for 15-20 minutes.

Add the milk and finish

  1. Pour in 1 pint of rich milk and add sugar to taste.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Let it sit for a few minutes to settle.

  5. Pour out the chocolate drink.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar 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

Scraped chocolate
Supplies the cocoa flavour and fat that give the drink its chocolate character and body.
Rich milk
Adds creaminess and body through its milk fat and proteins, softening the drink's texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the bitterness of the cocoa.

The step that matters

Bring the mixture to a boil. Milk contains proteins and sugars that can scorch on the base of the pot and boil over quickly. Stir gently and watch the pot once the milk is added.

“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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