Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Custard

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk and whisk in the egg yolks to prepare a soft custard.

  2. Dissolve the chocolate in ½ cup of warm milk and heat to boiling.

  3. Cool the chocolate mixture, sweeten with brown sugar, and add vanilla extract.

  4. Pour the chocolate mixture into a dish.

Top and serve

  1. Beat the egg white until stiff, adding a little sugar, and spread over the chocolate.

  2. Brown the top slightly in the oven.

  3. Serve cold.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Chocolate + milktop 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

Baker's chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and colour of the custard.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk into a soft custard as they set with gentle heat.
Egg white
Beaten stiff, it forms a light meringue topping that browns in the oven.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and dissolves the chocolate.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the chocolate mixture and adds a light caramel note.

The step that matters

Cooling the chocolate mixture before adding the egg whites. The custard must be cooled before the meringue is spread over it, so the topping stays light instead of deflating or weeping. Overheated egg yolks can also curdle, so heat the custard gently.

“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 custard recipes

Pie 12Cake 9Pudding 8Frozen 6Baked 5 See all 198 →

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipes