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Dessert

Chocolate Pie

A chocolate pie with a sweet filling made from eggs, sugar, butter, milk, flour, and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the egg yolks and milk, mixing well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder, then add to the mixture.

Bake and fill

  1. Divide the batter between two pie plates and bake until golden.

  2. For the filling, beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the sugar.

  3. Fold in the grated chocolate and vanilla.

  4. Once the pies are cool, spread the filling between the layers and on top.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter and help bind it, while whipped whites give the filling its light, airy structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender crumb to the batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pie layers together.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the layers rise and become lighter.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and stabilizes the whipped egg white filling.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff, then adding the sugar gradually. Egg whites whip best when clean and free of fat or yolk. Adding sugar gradually helps stabilize the foam, so the filling holds its volume instead of weeping or collapsing.

“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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