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Chocolate Cream Custard

A custard made with milk, chocolate, egg yolks, powdered sugar, egg whites, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 Cream Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil 1 quart of new milk.

  2. Mix ½ cup cold milk with 2 ounces grated sweet chocolate.

  3. Pour some boiling milk into the chocolate mixture.

  4. Return the mixture to the pan of boiling milk, stirring constantly.

  5. When heated through and just at boiling point, add 6 beaten egg yolks mixed with 1 cup powdered sugar, and blend well.

  6. Fold in 3 beaten egg whites and a little extract of vanilla.

Finish

  1. Reserve the other 3 egg whites for 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. 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. Milk + chocolatetop 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they heat and set, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, carrying the chocolate and setting with the eggs.
Sweet chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and colour that define the custard.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the custard and dissolves smoothly into the warm base.
Egg whites
Beaten whites folded in add lightness and airy texture to the custard.

The step that matters

Heating the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken the custard only as they gently heat and set. If the mixture is overheated or boils hard after the yolks go in, they can scramble and leave the custard grainy, so heat it just to the point of thickening.

“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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