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Dessert

Ohocolate Custabb

A sweet custard made from milk, chocolate, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Ladies' Benevolent Society, First Congregational Church (Fall River, Mass .). Ladies' Benevolent Society, Mass.) First Congregational Church (Fall River · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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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 ↓

Ohocolate Custabb

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chocolate custard

  1. Boil one quart of milk.

  2. Scrape one ounce of chocolate and mix with one cup sugar.

  3. Wet the mixture with two spoonfuls of boiling milk and work it into a paste with a spoon.

  4. Stir the paste into the boiling milk.

  5. Add six well-beaten eggs.

  6. Stir for three minutes and strain.

  7. Set the mixture in cold water and stir occasionally until cold.

  8. Stir in two teaspoonfuls of vanilla.

  9. Serve in cups or glasses.

Make the baked custard

  1. Put a half cup of salt into a pan and stir until it melts and is light brown.

  2. Add two tablespoons of water and stir into one quart of milk which is warm.

  3. Beat six eggs.

  4. Add one half teaspoon of salt, one teaspoonful of vanilla, and part of the milk.

  5. Strain into the remainder of the milk and pour into a buttered dish or mould.

  6. Set this in a pan of warm water and bake for thirty or forty minutes.

Make the caramel sauce

  1. Serve cold with caramel sauce.

  2. Put half a cup of sugar in a pan and stir over the fire until melted and light brown.

  3. Add half a cup of boiling water and simmer for ten minutes.

By Ladies' Benevolent Society, First Congregational Church (Fall River, Mass .). Ladies' Benevolent Society, Mass.) First Congregational Church (Fall River. 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. See the original page.

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. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Vanilla + teatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together170 recipes

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

  5. Milk + teatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together738 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

Vanilla and sugar 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that sets into a creamy custard with the eggs.
Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving it structure and body.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and, when caramelised, colours and flavours the sauce.
Chocolate
Adds chocolate flavour and a rich brown colour to the custard.
Vanilla
Adds aroma to the custard.

The step that matters

Bake in a pan of warm water. Gentle, indirect heat from the water bath lets the eggs set evenly into a smooth custard. Too much heat makes the egg proteins tighten and curdle, leaving a grainy texture.

“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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