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Dessert

Cocoa Pudding

A sweet, thick pudding made from milk, cocoa, sugar, corn starch, and cream.

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

Cocoa Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Reserve ½ cup of the milk.

  2. Mix the reserved milk with the corn starch until smooth.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the sugar and cocoa powder.

  4. Heat the remaining milk until it is scalding.

  5. Add the sugar and cocoa mixture to the hot milk.

  6. Add the corn starch mixture to the hot milk.

  7. Stir over hot water until the mixture is smooth.

  8. Add the salt.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the pudding into a mold.

  2. Serve with whipped heavy cream or plain 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Cocoa powder + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together826 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Cocoa powder + sugartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Corn starch
Thickens the milk into a smooth, set pudding as it heats.
Cocoa powder
Gives the pudding its chocolate flavor and color.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the cocoa.
Rich milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens.

The step that matters

Stir over hot water until smooth. Cornstarch must be stirred while heating so it swells and thickens evenly; stirring keeps lumps from forming and prevents scorching on the pot's base.

“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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