Why it works: Cocoa and cream work together. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 304 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓
Cocoa Paste
Ingredients
Directions
Place 2 teaspoons of cocoa paste in a tea cup.
Pour 2 tablespoons of boiling water over the paste and stir until dissolved.
Fill the cup with boiling water and stir again.
Add cream or milk if desired.
Boil for 2 to 3 minutes for better flavor.
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.
-
Cocoa + creamtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together304 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cocoa paste
- Provides the chocolate flavor and body of the drink.
The step that matters
Dissolving the paste in the first boiling water. Cocoa paste is solid fat and solids that clump if poured into a large volume of water. Stirring it into a small amount of boiling water first helps it dissolve smoothly before the cup is filled.
“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.
You might also like
Cocoa42 recipes
Cocoa Nut Milk10 recipes
Vegetable Soup350 recipes
Raspberry Vinegar214 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.