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Dessert

Chocolate Pie

A chocolate pie with a meringue topping made from grated chocolate, water, egg yolks, cornstarch, sugar, vanilla, and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Make the filling

  1. Combine grated chocolate and water in a saucepan.

  2. Boil until thick.

  3. Mix egg yolks, cornstarch, and sugar in a bowl.

  4. Add the mixture to the chocolate mixture and stir well.

  5. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

Assemble and bake

  1. Bake the pie crust until golden.

  2. Pour the chocolate filling into the crust.

  3. Beat egg whites until soft peaks form.

  4. Gradually add 1 cup of sugar until stiff peaks form.

  5. Spread the meringue over the chocolate filling.

  6. Brown in the oven.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 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).

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

Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and body of the filling.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness as they set with heat.
Cornstarch
Thickens the filling by swelling in hot liquid as it boils.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and stabilizes the beaten egg whites in the meringue.

The step that matters

Boil the chocolate mixture until thick. Cornstarch only thickens fully when the mixture reaches a boil, and the starch must be fully cooked to avoid a thin or grainy filling. Stirring prevents scorching on the bottom of the pan.

“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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