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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 base

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

  2. Dissolve powdered chocolate in warm water.

  3. Add corn-starch and sugar to the chocolate mixture, then bring to a boil.

  4. Pour the chocolate mixture into a baking dish.

Make the meringue and bake

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

  2. Spread meringue over the chocolate mixture.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) 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
Enriches the custard and helps give it a rich, thick body.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they form the light structure of the meringue.
White sugar
Stabilizes the whipped egg whites and adds sweetness to the meringue.
Corn-starch
Thickens the chocolate mixture as it heats, giving it a smooth, set texture.
Powdered chocolate
Provides the main chocolate flavour and colour of the filling.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, adding richness and moisture.

The step that matters

Whip the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites need to be whipped to firm peaks, with sugar added gradually, so the foam holds its shape. Any grease or yolk in the bowl prevents the whites from whipping properly.

“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.

More chocolate meringue recipes

Pie 13Pudding 8Custard 3 See all 11 →

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