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Dessert

Chocolate Custard

A baked custard made with milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, salt, water, and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

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 chocolate base

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Melt the chocolate in a separate bowl, then stir in half the sugar.

  3. Add the water to the chocolate and cook until smooth and glossy.

  4. Stir the scalded milk into the chocolate mixture until well combined.

Combine and bake

  1. Beat the eggs slightly, then mix in the remaining sugar and salt.

  2. Pour the chocolate and milk mixture into the egg mixture and strain into buttered molds.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until set, similar to yellow custard.

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. Vanilla + chocolatetop 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. Sugar + chocolatetop 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

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving it a firm, sliceable body.
Milk
Provides the liquid base and creamy texture of the custard.
Unsweetened chocolate
Supplies the chocolate flavor and deep color to the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Bake until set, not until firm. Eggs thicken as their proteins coagulate with heat. Overbaking forces out liquid and makes the custard grainy or watery, so remove it once 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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