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Chocolate Creams

Chocolate cream balls coated in melted chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Creams

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fondant

  1. Melt the sugar slowly, adding a little water.

  2. Stir in the acetic acid and vanilla, and boil until sugary, testing often by stirring a little in a saucer.

  3. Once sugary, remove from heat and stir until almost hard.

Shape the centres

  1. Roll into small balls and place on a buttered plate.

Coat in chocolate

  1. Melt the chocolate with 2 tablespoons of water and 1 cup of sugar, then boil for five minutes.

  2. When warm, dip the balls in the chocolate until well coated, then lay on plates to dry.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Granulated sugar
Forms the fondant structure and provides sweetness when cooked and stirred into a soft mass.
Acetic acid
Acidity partly breaks down sugar, helping the fondant stay smooth rather than grainy.
Chocolate
Forms the coating that adds rich flavour and sets to a firm shell as it dries.
Vanilla
Adds aroma that rounds out the sweetness of the fondant centres.

The step that matters

Stirring the cooked sugar until almost hard. Stirring while the sugar cools forms many tiny crystals, giving a creamy fondant. Stirring too early leaves it runny, and stirring too long makes it hard and crumbly.

“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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