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Dessert

Chocolate Custard

A custard made with eggs, sugar, chocolate, cream, and milk, boiled and chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Chocolate Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Beat the egg whites.

  2. Beat the yolks.

  3. Add the sugar to the yolks.

  4. Stir in the beaten whites.

Make the custard

  1. Dissolve the chocolate in the hot milk.

  2. Add the cream to the chocolate mixture.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Pour the hot mixture over the egg mixture, stirring constantly.

  5. Strain the custard into a pitcher.

  6. Place the pitcher in boiling water.

  7. Stir constantly until thickened.

Serve

  1. Serve in glasses.

  2. Chill before eating.

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

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks and whites set the custard and give it body as they thicken.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.
Chocolate
Provides the main flavor and dark color of the custard.
Cream
Its fat adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture.
Milk
Serves as the liquid that melts the chocolate and loosens the custard.

The step that matters

Pour the hot mixture over the egg mixture, stirring constantly. Adding the hot liquid slowly while stirring warms the eggs gradually. Without this, the egg proteins can cook too fast and scramble, leaving lumps instead of a smooth custard.

“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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