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Chocolate Custard

A baked chocolate custard topped with whipped egg whites and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

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

  1. Grate the chocolate and add it to the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Heat the milk until it just begins to scald.

  3. In a bowl, whisk together the cornstarch and eggs.

  4. Slowly add the hot milk mixture to the egg mixture, stirring until thick.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20 to 30 minutes.

  2. Whip the egg whites until light and fluffy, then gradually add the powdered sugar.

  3. Spread the whipped egg whites over the custard and brown in the oven.

  4. Serve with 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. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that thickens when heated.
Eggs
Thicken the custard as they set and add richness to the texture.
Cornstarch
Thickens the custard by swelling in hot liquid, giving it a smooth body.
Chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and dark colour of the custard.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the whipped egg whites and helps them hold a stable, glossy topping.

The step that matters

Slowly add the hot milk mixture to the egg mixture, stirring until thick. Adding hot milk too quickly can scramble the eggs. Pouring slowly while stirring warms the eggs gradually, so the custard thickens smoothly instead of curdling.

“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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