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Dessert

Cocoa Pudding

A baked cocoa pudding made with bread crumbs, milk, butter, sugar, cocoa, vanilla, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cocoa and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 357 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Cocoa Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. In a double boiler, combine the bread crumbs and milk.

  2. Cook until thick and smooth.

  3. Stir in the butter, sugar, cocoa, and vanilla.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. Beat for 2 minutes.

Add the eggs

  1. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs.

  2. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

  2. Place the baking dish in a pan of water.

  3. Bake for 45 minutes.

  4. Serve with hard sauce or 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. Cocoa + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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 thicken the custard and whites, folded in whipped, lighten it and help it set.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the pudding, providing moisture and a soft, creamy texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and thicken as they cook, giving the pudding body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.
Cocoa
Provides the chocolate flavor and color of the pudding.

The step that matters

Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Whites hold air only when whipped stiff, and folding gently keeps that air in the mixture. Deflating them makes the pudding dense rather than light and airy as it bakes and sets.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, butter, sugar, vanilla, egg):

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Cocoathe original
  3. Pecansfits about as well
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, butter, sugar, vanilla, egg. 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.

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