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Dessert

Chocolate Pie

A baked pie with a chocolate filling made from chocolate, sugar, milk, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chocolate Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the butter until light, then gradually add the sugar, beating until creamy.

  3. Add the eggs and milk, mixing well.

  4. Stir in the flour, which has been mixed with the baking soda and cream of tartar.

Bake and make the filling

  1. Bake for 50 minutes.

  2. For the filling, mix the chocolate and sugar together.

  3. Slowly add the boiling milk and yolks, simmering for about 10 minutes.

  4. Let the filling cool completely before adding it to the pie.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a lighter texture.
Eggs
Add structure and richness as they set, binding the batter together.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pie together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to help the batter rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda to lighten the texture.
Chocolate
Gives the filling its chocolate flavour and deep colour.

The step that matters

Let the filling cool completely before adding it to the pie. A hot filling softens the crust and can keep the custard from setting firmly, so cooling it fully helps the pie hold its shape when cut.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, milk, flour, cream, egg, chocolate):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Jalapenofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, flour, cream, egg, chocolate. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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