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Dessert

Chocolate Pie

A chocolate filling baked in a pie crust, topped with a stiffened egg white meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Pie

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 filling

  1. In a bowl, combine grated chocolate, egg yolks, vanilla, sugar, salt, cornstarch, and boiling water, then mix until smooth.

  2. Pour into a pie crust.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites with 1 tablespoon of sugar until stiff peaks form.

  2. Spread the egg white mixture over the top of the pie.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until slightly browned.

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. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Vanilla and sugar 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the filling and add richness and color to the custard.
Cornstarch
Thickens the filling as it heats, giving it a sliceable body.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff meringue that forms a light topping that browns in the oven.
Grated chocolate
Provides the main chocolate flavor and deep color to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilize the whipped egg whites.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites need to be whipped until firm so the meringue holds its shape and does not weep or collapse in the oven. Under-beaten whites stay runny and slide off the filling, while over-beaten whites turn dry and grainy.

“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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