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Dessert

Chocolate Pie

A chocolate custard pie with meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. Heat the milk and grated chocolate together in a saucepan.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the sugar and egg yolks until creamy.

  3. Add the vanilla to the egg mixture and combine well. Pour the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture and stir until smooth.

Bake and top

  1. Pour the filling into a prepared pie crust and bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

  2. Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form and spread over the baked pie.

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. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as they set and add richness to the custard.
Egg whites
Whip into a meringue that forms the stiff, airy topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that bakes into a set filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilise the egg yolks while beating.
Grated chocolate
Gives the filling its chocolate flavour when melted into the hot milk.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, so underbaking leaves the filling runny and overbaking can make it weep or crack. Bake until the centre is just set.

“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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