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Dessert

Pie, Chocolate Cream

A pie filled with a chocolate‑flavored cream made from milk, sugar, cornstarch, and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and chocolate 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 ↓

Pie, Chocolate Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Cook the milk, sugar, and cornstarch in a double boiler until it begins to thicken.

  2. Melt the chocolate in the oven and stir it into the thickened mixture.

Assemble the pie

  1. Fill about ½ inch thick between two layers of chocolate layer cake.

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 + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens into a smooth, pourable custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and adds body to the custard as it cooks.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture as its starch granules swell with heat, giving a set filling.
Baker's chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and richness, and firms the filling as it cools.

The step that matters

Thickening the milk, sugar, and cornstarch in the double boiler. Cornstarch only thickens fully once it reaches a high enough temperature, and the gentle heat of a double boiler helps prevent scorching. Stirring keeps the starch evenly dispersed so the filling does not form lumps.

“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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