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Dessert

Chocolate Custard or Cream

A chocolate custard made with eggs, sugar, chocolate, water, and cream, cooked 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 or Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs and chocolate

  1. Separate the egg whites and yolks, beating them up separately.

  2. Add the sugar to the yolks and stir in the beaten whites.

  3. Dissolve the chocolate in the hot water.

Make the custard

  1. Add the cream to the chocolate mixture and bring to a boil.

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

  3. Transfer to a pitcher and place it in boiling water, stirring until thickened.

Serve

  1. Serve in glasses and refrigerate until cold.

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

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

  5. Egg + chocolatetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks and whites thicken the custard and give it a rich, set texture as they cook.
Chocolate
Provides the main chocolate flavor and deep color to the custard.
Cream
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel and softens the set.
Fine white sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Pour the hot mixture over the egg mixture, stirring constantly.. Egg proteins set with heat, so pouring hot liquid into the eggs while stirring constantly tempers them gently. Stopping the stirring can let parts scramble into lumps.

“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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