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Dessert

Chocolate Pudding

A chocolate pudding made with vanilla chocolate, cinnamon, milk, sugar, eggs, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Vanilla and cinnamon 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 ↓

Chocolate Pudding

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.

Make the custard base

  1. In a pan, combine the finely scraped chocolate and cinnamon.

  2. Pour in the milk and stir until it boils.

  3. Gradually add the sugar, milling the chocolate until smooth and light.

  4. Let the mixture cool.

  5. Beat the eggs until frothy and mix them with the chocolate mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour into a buttered dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

  2. Serve cold, sprinkled with sifted sugar.

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. Vanilla + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

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

  2. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

Vanilla and sugar 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

Eggs
Set the pudding into a firm custard as they cook, and add richness.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that the eggs set into a creamy custard.
Maillard's vanilla chocolate
Supplies the main chocolate flavour and dark colour of the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and smooths the texture of the chocolate mixture.

The step that matters

Beat the eggs until frothy and mix them with the chocolate mixture. The mixture must have cooled before the eggs go in, because heat can scramble the egg proteins and leave lumps instead of a smooth custard.

“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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