Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Pie

A pre‑baked crust filled with chocolate custard and topped with meringue, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chocolate Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. Combine grated chocolate, cornstarch, milk, sugar, egg yolks, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir together and cook over medium heat until thickened.

Make the meringue and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.

  2. Gradually add 1 tablespoon of sugar to the egg whites and continue beating until stiff peaks form.

  3. Spread the meringue over the chocolate filling and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until browned.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Chocolate + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,543 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cornstarch
Thickens the milk and chocolate mixture as it cooks into a custard-like filling.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the filling, adding richness and a smooth texture.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that forms the meringue topping, which sets and browns in the oven.
Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and color of the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, when beaten into the whites, stabilizes the meringue.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling until thickened. Cornstarch only thickens fully when the mixture reaches a simmer and is stirred constantly. Undercooked filling stays runny and may not hold its shape when the meringue is added and baked.

“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.

More chocolate pie recipes

Filling 3 See all 137 →

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipesChocolate Drop CookiesChocolate Drop Cookies50 recipes