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Dessert

Chocolate Custard

Chocolate custard made with milk, egg yolks, chocolate, sugar, vanilla, topped with beaten egg whites and baked.

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

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 custard

  1. Combine 1 pint of milk with the yolks of 3 eggs in a saucepan.

  2. Prepare the custard as you would for plain boiled custard.

  3. Dissolve the chocolate in a little water.

  4. Once the custard is heated for the second time, stir in the dissolved chocolate quickly.

  5. Allow the custard to come to a hard boil.

  6. Remove the custard from heat and sweeten to taste.

  7. Let the custard cool.

  8. Add vanilla for flavor.

Top and bake

  1. Pour the custard into a dish or bowl.

  2. Beat the egg whites with a little sugar.

  3. Spread the beaten egg whites on top of the custard.

  4. Bake under a lid in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until browned.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and carries the flavor.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set with heat, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Sweetened chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and sweetness of the custard.
Egg whites
Beaten and spread on top, they set and brown in the oven to form a light topping.

The step that matters

Stir in the chocolate quickly after the second heating. Chocolate can clump or turn grainy if it meets hot custard unevenly, so it should be dissolved first and stirred in quickly to blend 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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