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Chocolate Custard

A sweet custard made with milk, chocolate, sugar, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,404 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chocolate Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Grate the chocolate into a bowl.

Make the custard

  1. Add the sugar and egg yolks, then beat until creamy.

  2. When the milk starts to steam, gradually pour it into the chocolate mixture, stirring briskly to prevent lumps.

  3. Return the mixture to the double boiler and cook until thickened like cream.

Chill and serve

  1. Once cooled, pour into a glass dish.

  2. When cold, top with whipped cream before serving.

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 + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the custard as they cook and help it set.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs thicken into a custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the bitter chocolate.
Sweet chocolate
Provides the main chocolate flavor and color.

The step that matters

Adding the hot milk to the chocolate mixture. Pouring the hot milk in too quickly can scramble the egg yolks and cause lumps. Adding it gradually while stirring briskly warms the yolks slowly so the mixture blends smoothly.

“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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