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Dessert

Chocolate Custard

A custard made with chocolate, corn starch, milk, egg yolks, sugar, butter, vanilla, egg whites, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Dissolve the corn starch in a little cold milk.

  2. Heat the remainder of the milk until boiling.

  3. Dissolve the chocolate in about ½ cup of boiling water.

  4. Beat the yolks of the eggs slightly, then add the sugar and dissolved corn starch.

  5. When the milk is very hot, add the chocolate and let it boil for a moment.

  6. Stir in the yolk mixture and let it thicken to a rich cream.

  7. Add the butter, then remove from heat and strain the mixture.

  8. Once cool, flavor with vanilla and lemon, then pour into a serving dish.

Make the icing and finish

  1. Make icing by beating the egg whites until stiff, then gradually stir in the sugar and add lemon.

  2. Spread the icing on top of the custard and chill in the refrigerator.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and enrich it, while whites are beaten into a stiff icing.
Corn starch
Starch thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, creamy custard as it heats.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that the starch and yolks thicken.
Chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and color of the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and, when beaten into the whites, stabilizes the icing.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel to the custard.

The step that matters

Stir in the yolk mixture and let it thicken. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but can scramble if the mixture boils hard. Keep the heat moderate and stir constantly so the custard turns creamy rather than lumpy or curdled.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chocolate, corn, milk, egg, sugar, butter, vanilla):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, corn, milk, egg, sugar, butter, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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