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Dessert

Chocolate Pudding

Chocolate pudding made by scalding milk, dissolving corn starch, adding chocolate, cooking until thick, served with cream or butter‑sugar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Chocolate Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Scald the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Dissolve the corn starch in a little of the scalded milk.

  3. Add the dissolved chocolate to the corn starch mixture before it thickens.

  4. Stir until the mixture is sufficiently cooked.

Serve

  1. Serve with cream or a sauce made from butter and sugar stirred to a cream.

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Corn + chocolatetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. 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 and gives the pudding its body and creamy mouthfeel.
Corn starch
Thickens the liquid as it heats, setting the pudding into a smooth, soft texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.
Chocolate
Provides the main flavor and color, and adds fat that makes the texture richer.

The step that matters

Stir until the mixture is sufficiently cooked. Cornstarch only thickens fully once the mixture is heated enough for its starch granules to swell and gelatinize. Underheated starch leaves the pudding thin and can leave a raw, floury taste. Keep stirring so it heats evenly and doesn't scorch or lump on the bottom of the pan.

“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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