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Chocolate Custards

Chocolate custards made by dissolving chocolate in milk, mixing with boiling water, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and baking in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Chocolate Custards

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 Custards

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Dissolve the chocolate in ½ cup of milk.

  2. Stir the chocolate mixture into the boiling water and boil for 3 minutes.

  3. When nearly cool, add the beaten eggs and stir into the milk.

  4. Add the vanilla and pour the mixture into cups.

Bake

  1. Set the cups in a baking dish filled with boiling water and bake.

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. 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. Chocolate + milktop 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

Eggs
Set the custard into a tender structure as they cook.
Milk
Provides the liquid base and creamy richness of the custard.
Chocolate
Gives the custard its chocolate flavour and colour.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Set the cups in a baking dish filled with boiling water and bake.. The surrounding hot water bath heats the custard gently and evenly. This keeps the eggs from overcooking, which would make the custard grainy or watery.

“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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