Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Pudding

A chocolate pudding made with eggs, sugar, bread crumbs, and grated chocolate, boiled in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Chocolate and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,404 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chocolate Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs well.

  2. Add sugar, grated chocolate, and bread crumbs to the yolks.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  4. Pour the mixture into a well-greased pudding mold.

Cook and serve

  1. Cover the mold tightly and boil in a large saucepan of water for 1½ hours.

  2. Serve with vanilla or lemon sauce.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Lemon + breadtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites lighten its texture as the pudding sets.
Grated chocolate
Provides the main flavour and richness of the pudding.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the pudding body so it holds its shape when steamed.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps tenderise the pudding's texture.
Lemon
Zest and juice add brightness and aroma that balance the richness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites hold air that gives the pudding its lightness. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring vigorously deflates the foam and leaves a dense pudding.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Datesfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, chocolate, bread, sugar. 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.

More chocolate pudding recipes

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

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesChocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipes