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Dessert

Chocolate Pies

A chocolate pie made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, and chocolate filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 Pies

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 batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  3. Add the well-beaten yolks of the eggs and mix well.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites and half of the milk with dissolved cream of tartar.

  5. Gradually add 1 cup of flour mixed with baking soda, alternating with the remaining milk.

  6. Spread the batter into round pie pans or cake tins.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, add the broken vanilla chocolate to the boiling water and stir until smooth.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the egg with ½ cup sugar, then add the flour and mix until smooth.

  3. Combine the chocolate mixture with the egg mixture and stir until cool.

Make the frosting and finish

  1. For the frosting, beat 1 egg with ¼ cup sugar, then add the grated chocolate and vanilla.

  2. Spread the frosting over the cooled pie.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the batter a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and structure, while beaten whites add lift to the batter.
Flour
Forms the structure of the batter as its proteins set during baking.
Cream of tartar
Its acidity reacts with baking soda and helps stabilize the beaten egg whites.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the cream of tartar to release gas that lifts the batter.
Vanilla chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and body of the filling.

The step that matters

Combining the chocolate and egg mixtures. Eggs thicken when heated, so combining them with hot chocolate can curdle the mixture if it is not stirred well. Stirring keeps the filling smooth as it cools.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, flour, cream, milk, vanilla):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, flour, cream, milk, vanilla. 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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