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Dessert

Chocolate Pudding

A baked chocolate bread pudding topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Chocolate Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Soak the stale bread crumbs in cold milk for 1 hour.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolks and salt to the soaked bread crumbs.

  3. In a saucepan, combine chocolate, sugar, and water; stir until smooth. Mix the chocolate mixture into the bread mixture.

  4. Add melted butter and vanilla to the mixture.

Bake and top

  1. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for about 30 minutes.

  2. Once cooled, spread meringue made from beaten egg whites and sugar on top.

  3. Set the pudding in the oven over a pan of hot water and bake until light brown.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla 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

Stale bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and form the soft, custard-like body of the pudding.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the custard as they set during baking.
Milk
Hydrates the bread and forms the liquid base that sets into custard.
Chocolate
Gives the pudding its flavor and dark color.
Egg whites
Whipped into meringue, they form a light, airy topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Setting the pudding in a water bath. Baking over hot water moderates the oven heat around the custard, so the eggs set gently and stay smooth rather than curdling or cooking too hard.

“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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