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Dessert

Chocolate Bavarian Cream

A chilled chocolate custard made with gelatin, milk, cream, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Chocolate Bavarian Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatin and chocolate

  1. Soak the gelatin in cold milk overnight.

  2. Melt the grated chocolate with hot water in a double boiler, stirring until smooth.

Make the custard base

  1. Add ½ cup milk, sugar, and the soaked gelatin to the chocolate mixture.

  2. Simmer the mixture until smooth but do not boil.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Set and serve

  1. Whip the cream and add vanilla flavoring.

  2. When the gelatin mixture begins to thicken, mix it with the whipped cream.

  3. Pour the mixture into wet molds.

  4. Refrigerate until hardened.

  5. Serve with additional cream.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

Gelatine
Sets the cream so it holds its shape when chilled and unmolded.
Cream
Whipped, it adds air and a light, rich texture to the set dessert.
Chocolate
Provides the main flavor and color of the dessert.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.
Milk
Adds moisture and body to the chocolate base and hydrates the gelatin.

The step that matters

Simmer without boiling. Gelatin must dissolve fully, but boiling can weaken its setting power and scorch the milk, so keep the mixture just below a boil until smooth.

“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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