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Dessert

Chocolate Pudding

A baked chocolate custard made with milk, chocolate, eggs, and sugar, topped with beaten egg whites and browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. Wet the grated chocolate with cold milk and stir it into the scalded milk until dissolved.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pudding dish.

  3. Add the yolks of six eggs and one whole beaten egg, along with six tablespoons of sugar.

Bake

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for about 45 minutes.

Top and brown

  1. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  2. Add sugar to taste to the beaten egg whites.

  3. Spread the egg white mixture over the pudding.

  4. Slightly brown the topping in the oven.

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. Milk + chocolatetop 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. Egg + sugartop 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

Grated chocolate
Gives the pudding its chocolate flavour and richness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs thicken into a custard.
Egg yolks
Thicken and set the custard, giving it a smooth, rich texture.
Whole egg
Adds more protein to help the custard set firmly.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and the topping.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam, they form a light topping that sets and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Baking the custard in a slow oven. Gentle, moderate heat lets the eggs set the custard smoothly. Too much heat makes the egg proteins tighten and curdle, leaving the pudding grainy and watery.

“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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