Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Curds

Chocolate curds are made by heating chocolate with milk, adding sugar, cooling, adding rennet, setting, and topping with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Chocolate Curds

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Heat the chocolate and milk together.

  2. Add the sugar and cool the mixture.

Set and finish

  1. Stir in the rennet and pour into a crystal dish.

  2. Once set, spread half of the whipped cream on top.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Milk
Provides the protein and liquid that rennet coagulates into a soft, sliceable set.
Rennet
Enzyme that causes the milk proteins to coagulate, turning the liquid into a set curd.
Chocolate
Adds the main flavour and colour to the milk mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the richness of the chocolate and cream.
Cream
Adds fat and richness to the topping, softening the set curd's flavour.

The step that matters

Stir in the rennet and pour into a crystal dish.. Rennet is heat-sensitive, so the mixture must be cooled before it is added. Added while still hot, the enzyme can lose activity and the milk may fail to set evenly.

“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.

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipesChocolate Drop CookiesChocolate Drop Cookies50 recipes