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Dessert

Chocolate Creams

A chocolate custard made by boiling milk with chocolate and sugar, then adding beaten egg yolks and vanilla, and cooling in cups.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Creams

fills twelve glasses

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil fresh milk with grated chocolate and white sugar.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and slowly add the chocolate milk while stirring.

  3. Flavor with vanilla boiled in milk.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill cups with the mixture and place them in water.

  2. Boil for one hour.

  3. Serve when cold.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set, giving it a smooth, creamy structure.
Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and some richness to the milk base.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.
Fresh milk
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavors and sets with the yolks.

The step that matters

Adding the chocolate milk to the yolks. Pouring hot milk into the yolks too quickly can scramble them. Adding it slowly while stirring warms the yolks gently so the custard stays smooth.

“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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