Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Puddixg

A chocolate pudding made with tapioca, sugar, vanilla, egg whites, topped with whipped cream and walnut halves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Puddixg

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a pot, add tapioca and enough boiling water to cover it.

  2. Stir constantly until thick and clear.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the baker's chocolate until melted.

  4. Add sugar, salt, vanilla, and the stiffly beaten egg whites, then mix well.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture into individual cups and top with whipped cream and walnut halves.

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. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

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

  4. Vanilla + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,730 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Chocolate + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

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

Tapioca
Thickens the mixture as it cooks, giving the pudding its body.
Egg whites
Beaten stiff, they add lightness and airy texture to the pudding.
Baker's chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Stirring the tapioca until thick and clear. Tapioca thickens as its starch swells in hot liquid. Stirring constantly keeps it from sticking and scorching on the bottom of the pot, and gives an even, smooth texture.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chocolate, sugar, vanilla, egg, cream):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Hazelnutfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, sugar, vanilla, egg, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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 pudding recipes

Steamed 30with Meringue 6Hot 6Baked 3Sauce 3Cold 3 See all 329 →

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipes