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Dessert

Chocolate Pie

A chocolate filling baked in a pie crust topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the crust

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Line a deep pie tin with the pie crust and bake until golden.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine grated chocolate, butter, vanilla, sugar, beaten egg yolks, cornstarch, and hot water.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thick.

  3. Pour the filling into the baked pie crust and let it cool.

Top and brown

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form, then gradually add powdered sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the cooled pie and brown 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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

Vanilla and sugar 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 filling and add richness as they set with the cornstarch.
Cornstarch
Thickens the hot filling into a smooth, sliceable custard.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam to form the airy, sliceable meringue topping.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.
Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and body of the filling.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling until thick. Cornstarch thickens only when the mixture reaches a boil while stirred constantly; undercooked filling stays runny and will not set when cooled.

“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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