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Chocolate Custard

Chocolate custard made with chocolate, milk, sugar, eggs, corn starch, and salt, cooked until thickened and served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Sugar and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,404 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chocolate Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dissolve two sections of chocolate in one quart of milk.

  2. Beat the yolks of six eggs.

Make the custard

  1. Add one cup sugar and a heaping tablespoon corn starch to the beaten yolks.

  2. Stir the mixture slowly into the boiling milk with dissolved chocolate.

  3. Add a pinch of salt.

  4. Let cook a few minutes, stirring constantly.

Serve

  1. Serve cold with white cake.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

431Calories
16 gProtein
22 gFat
42 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Chocolate1 oz (28g) semisweet155
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Women of the First Congregational Church (Marysville, Ohio). 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. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
Yolks thicken the custard as they heat, giving it a creamy, set body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour and gives the custard its moisture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.
Chocolate
Provides the main flavour and colour of the custard.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture slowly into the boiling milk. Adding the yolks to hot milk gradually while stirring keeps the eggs from scrambling. Stirring also spreads the heat so the yolks and starch thicken evenly into a smooth 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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