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Chocolate Meringue

A chocolate custard topped with meringue and baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Chocolate Meringue

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine milk and egg yolks to make a custard.

  2. Dissolve powdered chocolate in warm water and add to the custard.

  3. Stir in corn starch and sugar, then bring to a boil.

  4. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Beat egg whites until stiff, then gradually add white sugar to make meringue.

  2. Spread meringue over the custard and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for a few minutes until browned.

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 + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

  4. Chocolate + corntop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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 through their proteins and fat.
Corn starch
Thickens the custard as it heats, giving it a smooth, sliceable body.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that forms the light, browned meringue topping.
Powdered chocolate
Gives the custard its chocolate flavour and color.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, adding moisture and creaminess.

The step that matters

Beat egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped to stiff peaks to trap air for a stable foam. Any trace of fat or yolk can stop them whipping, and under-beaten whites will weep or collapse on the custard.

“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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