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Dessert

Chocolate Pudding

A chocolate custard made with milk, sugar, eggs, and spices, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chocolate Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the chocolate base

  1. Combine chocolate, nutmeg, and cinnamon in a saucepan.

  2. Pour in the milk and stir well.

  3. Cover and bring to a boil, then remove the lid.

  4. Stir the mixture and press out any lumps until smooth.

  5. Return to heat and gradually stir in the sugar while boiling.

  6. Set aside to cool completely.

Bake and serve

  1. Beat the eggs until very light.

  2. Pour in the beaten eggs and stir vigorously.

  3. Bake in an oven at 350°F (175°C) in a pan of boiling water until set.

  4. Serve cold.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Chocolate + cinnamontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,808 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Chocolate
Gives the pudding its flavour and deep colour.
Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the pudding structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs set into a custard.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Bake in a pan of boiling water until set. Eggs thicken gently when heated slowly. A water bath keeps the custard's temperature even and below boiling, so it sets smoothly rather than curdling or cracking.

“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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