Name: Chocolate Pie
Ingredients: 1 pint milk; 1 tablespoon corn starch; 1 cup sugar; 2 squares chocolate, grated and melted; 1 pint whipped cream

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 Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Scald the milk in a double boiler.
Add the corn starch and cook for 10 minutes, stirring constantly.
Stir in the sugar and melted chocolate until well combined.
Once cooled, flavor with vanilla.
Fold in the whipped cream gently.
Bake with only one crust or top with diamond-shaped pieces of pastry.

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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,955 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,466 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,404 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,128 recipes

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