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Dessert

Moulded Chocolate Custard

A chocolate custard made with gelatin, milk, sugar, egg yolks, and vanilla, poured into molds and served with cream.

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 ↓

Moulded Chocolate Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Soak the gelatin in water until soft.

  2. Melt the chocolate and mix it with the milk in a double boiler.

  3. Add the sugar and beaten egg yolks to the chocolate mixture.

  4. Heat the mixture until hot and smooth.

  5. Stir in the dissolved gelatin.

  6. Flavor with vanilla.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into small molds.

  2. Serve with 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 + 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid custard into a firm, sliceable mould as it cools.
Chocolate
Provides the main flavour and colour of the custard.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness through their proteins and fat.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that carries the chocolate and thickens with the yolks.
White sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the bitter chocolate.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture until hot and smooth. Egg yolks thicken when heated but can curdle if overheated, leaving a grainy texture. Heat gently and keep stirring so the custard stays smooth before the gelatin is added.

“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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