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Baked Chocolate Custards

A baked chocolate custard 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 ↓

Baked Chocolate Custards

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Wet the grated chocolate with a little milk and stir it into the hot milk.

  3. Boil the mixture for two minutes.

  4. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar in a bowl.

  5. Slowly pour the hot chocolate mixture over the egg yolks, stirring constantly.

  6. Season with vanilla and fill small cups with the mixture.

Bake and top

  1. Place the cups in a dripping pan filled with boiling water, ensuring they do not overflow.

  2. Bake for 20 minutes, or until the custards are firm.

  3. While cooling, whip the egg whites to a stiff meringue with a little powdered sugar.

  4. Once the custards are cold, top them with the meringue.

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
Yolks thicken the custard as they set, giving it a smooth, sliceable body; whites whip into the meringue topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, carrying the chocolate and setting around the egg proteins.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps stabilize the whipped egg white meringue.
Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and color of the custard.

The step that matters

Slowly pour the hot chocolate mixture over the egg yolks, stirring constantly. Pouring hot liquid onto yolks too quickly can scramble them. Gradual addition while stirring gently raises the yolks' temperature so they blend in smoothly and thicken the custard evenly instead of curdling.

“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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