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Dessert

Chocolate Paste

A thick chocolate paste made by melting chocolate with water, milk, butter, egg, and sugar.

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 Paste

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the chocolate in a saucepan.

  2. Add the water and milk, stirring until combined.

  3. Mix in the butter, beaten egg, and sugar.

  4. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the mixture thickens.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Chocolate + milktop 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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Chocolate
Provides the main flavor and the body of the paste.
Egg
Its proteins set with heat, helping the mixture thicken.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy texture.
Milk
Thins the melted chocolate and adds creaminess.

The step that matters

Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the mixture thickens. Once the egg is in, the mixture can scorch on the bottom or curdle if it gets too hot. Frequent stirring spreads the heat evenly, and the egg proteins set gradually into a smooth, thick paste.

“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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