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Chocolate Custard

A custard made with chocolate, milk, eggs, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,404 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chocolate Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine the grated chocolate and fresh milk over medium heat.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks until light, then gradually add the sugar while continuing to beat.

  3. Once the chocolate and milk mixture comes to a boil, remove it from heat and slowly pour it into the egg yolk mixture, stirring constantly until smooth.

  4. Return the mixture to the saucepan and stir briskly for 5 minutes until thickened.

Add the egg whites

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and fold them into the custard when it begins to harden in the freezer.

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 + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Chocolate
Gives the custard its chocolate flavour and a rich, smooth body.
Fresh milk
Forms the liquid base that the custard thickens into.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they heat and add richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the custard with an airy texture.

The step that matters

Adding the hot milk to the yolks. Pouring the hot chocolate milk into the yolks too fast can scramble them. Adding it slowly while stirring constantly warms the yolks gently, so the custard thickens smooth rather than lumpy.

“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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