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Dessert

Chocolate Pudding

A chocolate pudding made by dissolving chocolate and sugar in boiling water, thickened with corn starch, and served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Chocolate Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chocolate base

  1. Scrape the chocolate and add it with the sugar to the boiling water. Cook until dissolved.

Thicken and serve

  1. Wet the corn starch with the milk, then pour it into the hot chocolate mixture.

  2. Cook for five minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Serve cold with additional sugar and milk.

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. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

  4. Corn + chocolatetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Corn starch
Swells and thickens the hot liquid as it cooks, turning it into a pudding.
Chocolate
Provides the main flavor and color, and its cocoa butter adds richness.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body, softening the sharpness of the chocolate.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Stir constantly while the pudding cooks. Once the cornstarch mixture goes in, the starch thickens as it heats. Without constant stirring, it can clump and scorch on the bottom of the pan.

“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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