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Chocolate Bavarian Cream

A chilled chocolate custard made with chocolate, milk, egg yolks, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk 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 Bavarian Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chocolate and eggs

  1. Melt the chocolate in a small amount of cold milk over low heat, stirring until smooth.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and add the remaining cold milk.

  3. Strain the melted chocolate into the egg mixture and stir well.

Thicken the custard

  1. Pour the mixture into the boiling milk, stirring constantly until thickened.

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

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

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Vanilla + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Vanilla and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 27,347 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
Their proteins set as they heat, thickening the cream into a custard.
Grated chocolate
Adds deep chocolate flavor and cocoa fat for a rich, smooth body.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that the yolks thicken, giving the cream its moisture.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into the boiling milk while stirring constantly. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly so the egg yolks thicken smoothly instead of curdling or scrambling in hot spots.

“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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