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Dessert

Chocolate Custard

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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.

Prepare the custard

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a small bowl, mix the grated chocolate with a little cold milk to form a smooth paste.

  3. Stir the chocolate paste into the scalded milk and cook for 2 minutes.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the yolks of 5 eggs with the whites of 2 eggs and the sugar.

  5. Gradually pour the hot chocolate mixture into the egg mixture, stirring continuously.

  6. Pour the combined mixture into a buttered pudding dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the pudding dish in a larger pan filled with boiling water.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until the custard is firm.

  3. Spread a meringue made from the reserved egg whites whipped stiff with a little sugar on top, without removing from the oven.

  4. Bake until the meringue is done.

  5. 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. 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
Egg yolks thicken the custard as they set, while the extra whites whip into the meringue topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, which sets as the egg proteins coagulate.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites in the meringue.
Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and dark colour of the custard.

The step that matters

Adding the hot chocolate milk to the eggs. Pouring hot liquid into beaten eggs too fast can scramble the yolks. Adding it gradually while stirring gently warms the eggs so the custard thickens smoothly.

“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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