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Dessert

Chocolate Cream Pie

A chocolate custard filling topped with sweetened whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Chocolate Cream Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Mix the chocolate, flour, sugar, and salt in a saucepan.

  2. Add the scalded milk while stirring constantly.

  3. Boil for 15 minutes.

  4. Stir in the beaten egg and cook for 2 more minutes.

Assemble and finish

  1. Pour the mixture into a baked pie crust.

  2. Once cool, cover 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Bitter chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and deep color of the filling.
Flour
Thickens the filling as it cooks, giving it a firm, sliceable body.
Egg
Sets the custard as it heats, helping the filling firm up when cooled.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a smooth filling.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten egg and cook for 2 more minutes. Egg proteins can scramble if the hot mixture is added too fast or without stirring. Keep stirring while cooking so the egg thickens the filling smoothly.

“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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