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Dessert

Chocolate Pie

A custard chocolate filling baked in a crust and topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Chocolate Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Bring milk and sugar to a boil in a saucepan.

  2. Mix cornstarch with a little milk until smooth in a small bowl.

  3. Add the cornstarch mixture to the boiling milk.

  4. Stir in chocolate, egg yolks, and vanilla until well combined.

Assemble and top

  1. Pour the filling into the baked pie crust.

  2. Top with meringue made from whipped egg whites.

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 + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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 filling.
Egg yolks
Thicken the filling and add richness as they set with heat.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, sliceable filling when boiled.
Grated chocolate or cocoa
Gives the filling its chocolate flavor and color.
Egg whites
Whipped into the meringue topping, giving it airy structure.

The step that matters

Add the cornstarch mixture to the boiling milk. Cornstarch only thickens fully when the mixture is boiling and stirred, so it must be added to hot liquid and kept moving to avoid lumps and a thin filling.

“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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