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Chocolate Custard

A chocolate custard made by dissolving chocolate in milk, whisking egg yolks with sugar and cornstarch, then combining and cooking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Make the custard

  1. Dissolve the chocolate in the milk over low heat.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks, then add the sugar and cornstarch.

  3. Slowly stir the egg mixture into the boiling milk with chocolate.

  4. Add a pinch of salt and cook for a few minutes, stirring constantly.

Serve

  1. Serve cold with cake.

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. Chocolate + milktop 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

Chocolate
Provides the main flavor and adds richness and body to the custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the custard thickens and sets within.
Egg yolks
Thicken and set the custard as their proteins coagulate with gentle heat, adding richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.
Cornstarch
Thickens the custard as its starch granules swell and gelatinize in hot liquid.

The step that matters

Slowly stir the egg mixture into the boiling milk. Adding the eggs gradually, while stirring, tempers them so they do not scramble. Stirring keeps heat even so the yolks and starch thicken the custard smoothly instead of forming lumps.

“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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