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Dessert

Chocolate Custard

A custard made with chocolate, milk, eggs, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,404 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chocolate Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Beat the whites of 2 eggs until light and fluffy.

  3. Once the milk boils, add the beaten egg whites and cook briefly.

  4. Remove the cooked egg whites and set aside on a plate.

  5. Grate the chocolate and stir it into the boiling milk.

  6. When the mixture begins to thicken, add the remaining eggs and sugar.

  7. Stir constantly for a few moments until well combined.

Serve

  1. Pour the custard into cups and top each with some of the reserved egg white frosting.

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. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
Egg proteins thicken the custard as they set and the cooked whites form a light topping.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that the chocolate and eggs thicken into a smooth custard.
Chocolate
Supplies the chocolate flavour and dark colour of the custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Adding the remaining eggs to the milk. Egg proteins set when heated, so adding eggs to very hot milk can scramble them. Stirring constantly and keeping the heat moderate helps the custard thicken smoothly instead of curdling.

“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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