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Dessert

Chocolate Filling for Cream Puffs

A chocolate filling made from flour, sugar, milk, egg, chocolate or cocoa, butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Filling for Cream Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Mix the flour with the white sugar.

  2. Stir in the hot milk and cook for 13 minutes, stirring often.

  3. Beat the egg and add it gradually to the mixture.

  4. Melt the chocolate or cocoa and dilute it with the hot mixture, stirring until smooth.

  5. Strain the mixture and set aside to cool.

Finish the filling

  1. Wash the salt from the butter, dry it thoroughly, and heat it to a cream.

  2. Gradually add the powdered sugar, beat together, and flavor with vanilla extract.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Thickens the milk mixture into a stable, sliceable custard structure.
Egg
Thickens the custard as it heats and adds richness to the filling.
Hot milk
Forms the liquid base, which thickens as its starch cooks with the flour.
Chocolate or cocoa
Provides the chocolate flavor and color of the filling.
Unsalted butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the filling.
White sugar
Sweetens the custard and softens its flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg gradually. Egg proteins set when heated, so adding the egg slowly to the hot mixture, while stirring, mixes it in smoothly. Adding it all at once can scramble the egg and leave lumps in the custard.

“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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