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Dessert

Chocolate Pudding

A steamed chocolate pudding served with a chocolate sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Chocolate Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the sugar and butter together.

  2. Melt the chocolate and add it to the mixture.

  3. Beat in the egg and milk.

  4. Stir in the flour and baking powder until combined.

Steam the pudding

  1. Pour the batter into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 2 hours.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, combine water and cornstarch in a saucepan.

  2. Add sugar, butter, and chocolate to the saucepan.

  3. Cook until thickened, then flavor with vanilla.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the pudding as it sets during steaming.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, lifting the pudding so it is light rather than dense.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping the pudding bind and set.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor in the pudding and sauce.
Cornstarch
Thickens the sauce as it cooks, giving it a smooth, glossy body.
Chocolate
Provides the main chocolate flavor and some richness in the pudding and sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce until thickened. Cornstarch only thickens fully when the mixture reaches a simmer and is stirred, so stopping early leaves the sauce thin and cloudy.

“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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