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Dessert

Chocolate Cream Pie

A chocolate custard pie topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Cream Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Combine milk, chocolate (or cocoa), sugar, egg yolks, cornstarch, and vanilla in a saucepan.

  2. Cook until thick enough to pile.

Prepare the crust

  1. Prepare a single pie crust by rolling dough on the outside of an inverted pie tin dusted with flour.

  2. Bake for 5 minutes, then remove and place in the pie tin.

Bake and top

  1. Pour the filling into the crust.

  2. Bake in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) until the filling just bubbles.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then mix in 2 to 3 tablespoons sugar.

  4. Spread over the pie.

  5. Return to the oven until the meringue is delicately browned on top.

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

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

  4. Vanilla + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness to the chocolate filling.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture so the filling sets firm enough to slice.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that forms the meringue topping.
Chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and color of the filling.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the filling that cornstarch and yolks thicken.

The step that matters

Cook the filling until thick enough to pile. Cornstarch thickens only when the mixture reaches a full boil and holds it, so undercooked filling stays runny and will not set when cooled.

“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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