Why it works: Chocolate and nuts work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 440 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓
Chocolate Custards
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.
Make the custard
Cut the chocolate into pieces and pour enough milk over it to prevent burning.
Boil for 10 minutes.
Remove from heat and pour the boiling milk or cream over the chocolate. Stir to combine.
Beat together the yolks of 8 eggs and 2 egg whites.
Stir into the chocolate mixture along with the sugar.
Pour the mixture into cups.
Place them in a baking dish filled with water.
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until set.
Top and serve
Beat the remaining 6 egg whites with a little sugar until frothy.
Heap the froth on each custard.
Garnish each froth with a chocolate nut.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Chocolate + nutstop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together440 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,404 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,128 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
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Milk + nutstop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together982 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Chocolate
- Provides the rich chocolate flavour and, once melted into the milk, the body of the custard.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the custard as they set in the oven, giving it a smooth, firm texture.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a light froth that tops the custards and adds airy contrast to the set base.
- Milk or cream
- Melts the chocolate and sets the custard base with moisture and richness.
The step that matters
Baking the custards in a water bath. Egg custard turns grainy or curdles if heated too fiercely. Baking the cups in a dish of water gives gentle, even heat, so the custard sets smooth. Bake only until set, since overbaking squeezes out liquid and makes it tough.
Swap the nuts
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chocolate, milk, egg, sugar):
- Pecansfits better
- Almondfits better
- Peanutfits better
- Nutsthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, milk, egg, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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