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Dessert

Chocolate Filling

A chocolate filling for pies made with milk, chocolate, flour, eggs, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Heat 1 cup of milk with a pinch of salt and 1½ squares of ground chocolate in a double boiler until hot and smooth.

  2. Stir in 2 tablespoons of flour moistened in cold milk and cook, stirring constantly, until smooth and thickened.

  3. Continue cooking for 10 minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. In a bowl, mix the yolks of 2 eggs with 5 tablespoons of sugar.

  5. Pour the hot chocolate mixture over the egg mixture, stirring well.

  6. Return the mixture to the double boiler and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.

  7. Cool the mixture, then flavor with vanilla and cinnamon.

Bake and top

  1. Pour the filling into a pie crust and bake for 10 minutes.

  2. Cool again and cover with meringue.

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

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

  3. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that becomes the body of the filling.
Flour
Thickens the filling as it cooks, giving it a smooth, sliceable set.
Egg yolks
Enrich the filling and help it set into a creamy custard as they cook.
Ground chocolate
Supplies the chocolate flavour and colour of the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Return the mixture to the double boiler and cook, stirring constantly. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated, so gentle heat and constant stirring keep the custard smooth while it thickens.

“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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