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Dessert

Chocolate Cream

A chocolate custard made with chocolate, milk, eggs, and optional vanilla bean.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Chocolate Cream

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 Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape the chocolate very finely.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the chocolate and milk.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the mixture, stirring continually until the chocolate is dissolved.

  2. Thicken the mixture by adding the eggs, whisking well.

  3. For added flavor, boil a vanilla bean with the milk.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Egg and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 27,347 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

Chocolate
Provides the main flavor and, once dissolved, richness to the custard base.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the chocolate dissolves into and the eggs thicken.
Eggs
Set with heat to thicken the mixture into a custard with body.
Vanilla bean
Adds aroma and a subtle flavor to the milk.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs. Egg proteins set when heated, so they can curdle or turn grainy if added to a mixture that is too hot or unevenly heated. Whisking them in well distributes the heat and keeps the custard smooth.

“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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