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Dessert

Chocolate Pudding

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 ↓

Chocolate Pudding

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 pudding

  1. Heat the milk and chocolate in a saucepan until the chocolate is dissolved.

  2. Remove from heat, cool slightly, then stir in the egg yolks and vanilla.

  3. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 25 minutes.

Top and brown

  1. Beat the egg whites with 4 tablespoons of powdered sugar until stiff peaks form.

  2. Spread the egg white mixture on top of the pudding and return to the oven to brown.

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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that sets into the pudding's body.
Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the pudding, and whipped whites give the topping its airy structure.
Grated chocolate
Provides the main chocolate flavor and richness.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the pudding and stabilizes the whipped egg white topping.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Whites hold air only when beaten to firm peaks without any yolk or grease in the bowl. Under-beaten whites collapse on the pudding, while over-beaten whites turn grainy and weep liquid as they bake.

“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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