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Dessert

Chocolate Pudding

A chocolate pudding made with bread crumbs, milk, eggs, and butter, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

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.

Prepare the base

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Mix the grated bread and grated chocolate in a bowl.

  3. Heat the milk to a boiling point and pour it over the bread and chocolate mixture.

  4. Add salt and butter if needed, then let it cool.

  5. Stir in the egg yolks and sugar to taste, and add vanilla or nutmeg if desired.

Bake and brown

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for 1 hour.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then mix in the powdered sugar.

  3. Spread the egg white mixture over the pudding and return it to the oven to 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

Dry bread
Absorbs the hot milk and gives the pudding its body and crumb.
Chocolate
Provides the main flavor and richness of the pudding.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that softens the bread and sets into a custard-like texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set during baking.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff meringue that forms a light topping and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Returning the meringue to the oven. Egg whites beaten with sugar form a stable foam that can weep or collapse if overbaked. Watch closely so the topping only lightly browns while the custard underneath stays set.

“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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