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Dessert

Chocolate Pudding

A chocolate pudding served over sponge cake soaked in sherry, topped with beaten egg whites and thin custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chocolate Pudding

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 chocolate layer

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Add the butter, sugar, and grated chocolate to the boiling milk and stir until melted.

  3. Soak the sponge cake slices in sherry and place them in a serving dish.

  4. Pour the chocolate mixture over the soaked sponge cake.

Top and bake

  1. Let it cool, then beat the egg whites with sugar until stiff peaks form and spread over the chocolate mixture.

  2. Lightly brown the top in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

Serve

  1. Serve hot or cold with thin custard.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites form a stiff meringue topping that sets and browns in the oven.
Sponge cake
Soaked slices form the base that absorbs the chocolate mixture and holds its shape.
Milk
Liquid base that melts the chocolate and makes a smooth, pourable mixture.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture in the chocolate mixture.
Grated chocolate
Provides the main chocolate flavour and body of the pudding layer.
Sherry
Moistens the sponge cake and adds a fruity, aromatic note.

The step that matters

Let the chocolate mixture cool before spreading the egg whites. Egg whites beaten with sugar form a stable meringue only when the base is not hot enough to deflate or melt them. Spreading onto a cooled layer keeps the topping light and lets it brown evenly.

“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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