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Dessert

Chocolate Pudding

A milk-based chocolate pudding thickened with corn starch, sweetened with sugar, and topped with a frothy egg white frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Boil the milk.

  2. Stir in the chocolate, corn starch, sugar, and beaten yolks of the eggs.

  3. Bake until set.

Frost and serve

  1. Once the pudding is cold, beat the egg whites to a froth.

  2. Stir in ½ cup of pulverized sugar.

  3. Spread the frosting on the pudding and serve.

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. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the pudding sets from.
Eggs
Yolks thicken and set the pudding; whites whip into the frosting.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture so the pudding holds its shape.
Chocolate
Provides the main flavor and color of the pudding.
Pulverized sugar
Sweetens the pudding and stabilizes the whipped egg white frosting.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg proteins and starch thicken the custard as it heats. Underbaking leaves it runny, while overbaking can make the eggs curdle and weep.

“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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