Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Pudding

A sweet chocolate pudding made by heating milk, melting chocolate, mixing eggs and cornstarch, and setting to thicken.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler until boiling.

  2. Add the grated chocolate to the boiling milk and stir until melted.

  3. In a bowl, beat together the eggs, sugar, cornstarch, vanilla extract, and salt.

  4. Gradually add the egg mixture to the boiling milk, stirring constantly until it thickens.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold and set it in a cool place to harden.

  2. Serve with sweetened cream flavored with vanilla extract.

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 that the custard thickens and sets into.
Eggs
Thicken the custard as they cook and add richness and structure.
Cornstarch
Thickens the hot milk mixture into a smooth, sliceable pudding.
Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and adds body to the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture into the boiling milk. Adding the eggs too fast or without constant stirring can scramble them into lumps. Gradual addition while stirring tempers the eggs, letting the starch and egg proteins thicken the custard 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.

More chocolate pudding recipes

Steamed 30with Meringue 6Hot 6Baked 3Sauce 3Cold 3 See all 329 →

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipes