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Dessert

Chocolate Pie

A chocolate pie made with cream, flour, sugar, vanilla, eggs, and grated chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Heat the cream in a saucepan.

  2. Mix the flour with the sugar and add to the cream.

  3. Whip the egg yolks until light and add them to the mixture.

  4. Cook for a few minutes, then add the grated chocolate.

  5. Stir in the vanilla for flavor.

Assemble and bake

  1. Make a rich paste and line a pie tin with it.

  2. Pour the filling into the lined tin.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) since the filling is already cooked.

  4. Ice the top with the whipped egg whites.

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. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Cream
Provides fat and moisture, giving the filling a rich, smooth body.
Flour
Starch thickens the filling as it heats, giving it structure and a sliceable texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the bitterness of the chocolate.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the filling as they heat, and whites whipped into a topping add lightness.
Grated chocolate
Supplies the main chocolate flavor and fat, enriching the filling.

The step that matters

Cook the filling after adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but overheating can make them scramble and turn the filling grainy. Cooking gently over moderate heat and keeping the mixture moving gives a smooth, set custard-like filling.

“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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