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Dessert

Chocolate Parfait

A chilled chocolate custard made with sugar syrup, egg yolks, melted chocolate, cream, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Chocolate Parfait

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chocolate base

  1. Boil the sugar and water to make a thick syrup.

  2. Pour the syrup slowly over the melted chocolate and mix thoroughly.

  3. When slightly cool, gradually add the well-beaten egg yolks.

  4. Place the mixture over a double boiler and cook until it thickens, stirring constantly.

  5. Beat the mixture until cool.

Finish and freeze

  1. Add the cream after beating it until stiff.

  2. Pack the mixture in ice and salt.

  3. Set aside for 4 hours to ripen.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Egg + chocolatetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

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 when cooked gently with stirring.
Cream
Adds fat and softness, giving the parfait a smooth, light texture once whipped.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the base and, boiled with water, forms the syrup that smooths the chocolate.
Chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and fat that gives the mixture body.

The step that matters

Cook the yolks over a double boiler until thickened. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set with gentle heat. Too much heat or no constant stirring can scramble them into lumps, so keep the heat gentle and stir throughout.

“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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