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Dessert

Cold Chocolate Sauce

A chilled chocolate sauce made with sugar, unsweetened chocolate, boiling water, and cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,287 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Cold Chocolate Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Break the chocolate into bits.

  2. Pour the boiling water over the chocolate and cook for 3 minutes.

  3. Mix the sugar and cornstarch together, then add to the chocolate mixture.

  4. Stir until boiling, then remove from heat.

Chill and flavour

  1. Chill before using.

  2. Add a pinch of ground cinnamon or a few drops of vanilla if desired.

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. Cinnamon + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 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 + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Chocolate + cinnamontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,808 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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 body to the sauce.
Cornstarch
Thickens the sauce as it comes to a boil.
Unsweetened chocolate
Gives the sauce its chocolate flavour and dark colour.

The step that matters

Stir until boiling, then remove from heat.. Cornstarch only thickens fully once the mixture reaches a boil. Stopping too early leaves the sauce thin, while cooking too long can make it gluey.

“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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