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Dessert

Chocolate Filling

A chocolate filling made by melting chocolate, mixing milk, egg yolk, sugar, and cornstarch, then cooking until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Filling

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the sweet chocolate in a double boiler.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the milk, egg yolk, sugar, and cornstarch.

  3. Add the mixture to the melted chocolate.

  4. Cook over simmering water, stirring constantly, until thick.

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. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 yolk
Adds richness and helps thicken the filling as it cooks.
Cornstarch
Thickens the mixture into a smooth, set filling when heated.
Sweet chocolate
Provides the main chocolate flavour and body of the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the chocolate's bitterness.

The step that matters

Cook over simmering water, stirring constantly, until thick. Cornstarch needs to reach a simmer to swell and thicken fully, while constant stirring prevents lumps and keeps the egg yolk from scrambling on the hot base.

“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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