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Dessert

Chocolate Pudding

Chocolate pudding made by dissolving cornstarch and chocolate in milk, boiled until thick, flavored with vanilla, served with cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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

Prepare

  1. Dissolve cornstarch in the milk.

  2. Dissolve the chocolate in 2 tablespoons of hot water.

Make the pudding

  1. Boil the milk, then add the dissolved cornstarch, chocolate, and a little salt.

  2. Boil until thick.

  3. Flavor with vanilla.

Serve

  1. Pour into molds and serve with cream sauce.

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

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Cornstarch
Thickens the milk as it boils, giving the pudding its set body.
Grated chocolate
Supplies the chocolate flavor and color of the pudding.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornstarch thickens and the chocolate flavors.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a caramel note to the chocolate.

The step that matters

Boil until thick. Cornstarch only thickens fully once the mixture reaches a boil and is held there while stirred. Stopping early leaves a thin, runny pudding that will not set properly when cooled.

“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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