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Dessert

Chocolate Pudding

A steamed chocolate pudding made with eggs, sugar, milk, cocoa, flour, baking powder, butter, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cocoa and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 357 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Beat the egg yolks until light, then gradually add the sugar.

  2. Mix in the sweet milk, cocoa, and flour until well combined.

  3. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites and baking powder.

  4. Steam the mixture for 20 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, cream together the powdered sugar and butter.

  2. Stir in the milk and heat in a double boiler until it boils.

  3. Add the vanilla and stir well before serving.

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. Cocoa + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  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. Milk + cocoatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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
Whipped whites and yolks give the steamed pudding its light, airy structure.
Flour
Provides the starch that sets the batter into a sliceable, tender body.
Baking powder
Releases gas during steaming, helping the pudding rise and stay light.
Cocoa or chocolate
Supplies the chocolate flavour and deep colour of the pudding.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites. Stiffly beaten whites trap air that leavens the batter. Folding gently keeps that air in, so the pudding stays light instead of dense.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits about as well
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk, flour, 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.

More chocolate pudding recipes

Steamed 30with Meringue 6Hot 6Baked 3Sauce 3Cold 3 See all 329 →

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