Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Souffle Pudding

A chocolate pudding made by melting chocolate with milk, sugar, flour, cornstarch, butter, and eggs, baked in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Souffle Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Melt the chocolate in a saucepan over a kettle of boiling water.

  2. Stir the melted chocolate into the boiling milk with the sugar.

  3. Rub the flour and cornstarch until smooth in a little cold milk, then strain it into the mixture.

  4. Add the butter and cook until thick and smooth.

  5. Once slightly cooled, add the beaten egg whites and yolks.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a pudding dish set in a pan of boiling water for about 30 minutes.

  2. Serve hot with whipped cream sweetened to taste and flavored 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

Eggs
Whites lift the batter and yolks enrich it, letting the pudding set softly while staying airy.
Flour
Starch that thickens the milk mixture so the pudding holds its body.
Cornstarch
Extra starch that thickens the custard and gives it a smooth, silky texture.
Chocolate
Provides the main flavor and adds fat that makes the pudding rich.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the starches thicken and the eggs set into.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Baking in a water bath. The pan of boiling water around the pudding dish moderates the heat, so the eggs set gently. Without it, the edges can overcook, turning the custard rubbery or grainy.

“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.

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipes