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Dessert

Chocolate Custard Pie

A pie with a chocolate custard filling, a flour and lard crust, topped with an egg white frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 Custard Pie

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 custard

  1. Scald the sweet milk and mix in the grated chocolate until dissolved.

  2. In a bowl, combine the egg yolks, whole egg, vanilla extract, and sugar. Stir in the chocolate mixture.

Make the crust and frosting

  1. For the frosting, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form, then gradually add 4 tablespoons of sugar until stiff peaks form.

  2. For the crust, mix the flour, lard, 1 egg white, 2 teaspoons sugar, water, and a pinch of salt until a dough forms.

Assemble and bake

  1. Roll out the dough and fit it into a pie pan. Pour the chocolate custard filling into the crust.

  2. Top with the egg white frosting and bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Vanilla + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Vanilla and sugar 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

Eggs
Yolks and whites thicken the custard and set the frosting, giving structure.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, setting as it bakes.
Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and color throughout the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and stiffens the egg white frosting.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the pastry dough for the crust.
Lard
Adds fat to the crust, making it tender and flaky.

The step that matters

Bake at 350°F until set. Egg-thickened custard sets as proteins coagulate with heat. Underbaking leaves it runny, while overbaking can make it weep or crack, so watch for a firm set at the centre.

“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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