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Dessert

Chocolate Custard

A chocolate custard baked in a pie crust and topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,404 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. 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.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine sweet milk, sugar, egg yolks, flour, and chocolate.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thickened.

  3. Pour the mixture into a baked pie crust.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold in 1 tablespoon of sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the custard.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until the meringue is golden 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. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness as they set with heat.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so the custard holds its shape when sliced.
Egg whites
Whipped into a meringue that forms the light topping and browns in the oven.
Chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and colour of the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and, in the meringue, stabilises the whipped whites.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard until thickened. Stir constantly over medium heat so the egg yolks and flour thicken evenly without scorching or curdling. Undercooked custard stays runny and will not set properly once baked under the meringue.

“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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