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Chocolate Sauce for Ice Cream

A simple chocolate sauce made by simmering sugar, milk, and chocolate, finished with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chocolate Sauce for Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine sugar, milk, and grated chocolate (or cocoa).

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens to a syrup.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the butter until melted.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and thickens it into a syrup as it cooks down.
Milk
Provides liquid and creaminess, giving the sauce a smoother, softer body.
Grated chocolate
Supplies the chocolate flavour and deep colour of the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy finish when stirred in off the heat.

The step that matters

Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly. Sugar and milk can scorch on the bottom of the pan if left unstirred, leaving a burnt taste. Constant stirring keeps the mixture even while it thickens.

“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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