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Dessert

Chocolate Pie

A chocolate custard pie topped with meringue.

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

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine the chocolate or cocoa and water. Bring to a boil.

  2. Add the egg yolks, cornstarch, and sugar. Stir until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla.

  4. Pour the mixture into the baked pie crust.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and spread them on top of the pie.

  2. Brown the pie in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until the meringue is golden.

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. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Baker's chocolate or cocoa
Provides the chocolate flavour and dark colour of the filling.
Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as they set with heat and add richness.
Cornstarch
Thickens the hot liquid into a smooth, sliceable custard.
Egg whites
Whip into a stiff foam that forms the meringue topping and browns in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilise the meringue.

The step that matters

Thickening the filling. Cornstarch needs to reach a boil to fully thicken, and egg yolks can scramble if they get too hot too fast. Stirring constantly while the mixture heats keeps the filling smooth and lump-free.

“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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