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Dessert

Chocolate Custard

Chocolate custard made by melting chocolate with milk, sugar, egg yolks, and cornstarch, then served cold.

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Combine chocolate and enough milk to barely cover it in a pan over boiling water.

  2. Stir until smooth.

  3. Reserve 3 tablespoons of milk to dissolve the cornstarch, then dissolve the cornstarch in the reserved milk.

  4. Add the rest of the milk, sugar, egg yolks, and dissolved cornstarch to the chocolate mixture.

  5. Stir slowly in the boiling milk.

  6. Add a pinch of salt.

  7. Cook for a few minutes while stirring constantly.

Serve

  1. Serve cold with white 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, once melted, the rich dark color of the custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the custard thickens in and carries the chocolate.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they heat and add richness and smoothness.
Cornstarch
Thickens the custard by swelling in the hot liquid, giving body without much flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Cook for a few minutes while stirring constantly. Egg yolks and cornstarch thicken the custard, but the mixture can scorch on the bottom or curdle if left unstirred or overheated. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly so the custard thickens smoothly.

“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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