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Dessert

Baked Chocolate Custard

A baked custard made with milk, flour, sugar, chocolate, vanilla, and topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Baked Chocolate Custard

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the custard

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a saucepan, heat the milk until warm.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix flour and sugar.

  4. Gradually add the warm milk to the flour mixture, stirring constantly.

  5. Melt the chocolate and add it to the mixture, stirring until smooth.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for about 30 minutes.

  2. Once cooled, flavor with vanilla extract.

  3. Serve with sweetened whipped cream.

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 + 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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

Sugar and vanilla 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 of the custard, providing moisture and body as it thickens.
Flour
Thickens the mixture and gives the custard structure as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the bitterness of the chocolate.
Unsweetened chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and deep color of the custard.

The step that matters

Adding the warm milk to the flour mixture. Pouring the milk in gradually while stirring constantly keeps the flour dispersed, so lumps do not form and the custard bakes smooth.

“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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