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Dessert

Chocolate Creams

A sweet treat of walnut-sized balls made from sugar, water, arrowroot, vanilla, and grated chocolate, rolled in melted chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Arrowroot and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 242 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chocolate Creams

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. In a saucepan, mix sugar, water, and arrowroot.

  2. Boil for 7 minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Remove from heat and stir until creamy.

  4. Add vanilla and mix well.

Shape and coat

  1. Form the mixture into walnut-sized balls.

  2. Melt the grated chocolate without water.

  3. Roll the cream balls in the warm chocolate.

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. Arrowroot + vanillatop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together242 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + arrowroottop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,073 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

Sugar
Provides sweetness and, as it cooks, body and a creamy texture in the centre.
Arrowroot
Thickens the boiled syrup so it sets into a soft, creamy mass that holds its shape.
Grated chocolate
Forms the coating that gives a glossy, rich outer layer when melted.

The step that matters

Boil for 7 minutes, stirring constantly. Sugar syrup can scorch on the bottom of the pan if not stirred, and the mixture must be cooked enough for the arrowroot to thicken it. Stirring keeps heat even so the mass sets creamy rather than burnt or runny.

“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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