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Dessert

Chocolate Corn Starch

A chocolate pudding thickened with corn starch, made by boiling milk, mixing chocolate, corn starch, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and chilling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 Corn Starch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Pour boiling milk over grated chocolate.

  2. Add corn starch, beaten eggs, cold milk, sugar, and vanilla to the melted chocolate.

  3. Boil all together for one minute, stirring briskly.

Serve

  1. Pour into molds and serve cold with cream.

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. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, 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

Corn starch
Thickens the pudding as it boils, giving it a firm, sliceable set.
Eggs
Add richness and help set the custard once heated.
Chocolate
Provides the main flavour and colour of the pudding.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens into a smooth pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Boil all together for one minute, stirring briskly. Corn starch only thickens fully once it reaches boiling, and constant stirring prevents lumps and keeps the eggs from scrambling on the hot base of the pan.

“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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