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Dessert

Chocolate Pudding

A baked chocolate pudding made with milk, bread crumbs, chocolate, eggs, vanilla, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla 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 Pudding

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 base

  1. Separate the yolks and whites of 4 eggs.

  2. Beat the yolks and 2 whole eggs with sugar until light.

  3. Heat the milk until it boils, then pour it over the bread crumbs and chocolate.

  4. Add the beaten eggs, sugar, and vanilla; ensure it is sweet enough.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish and bake for 1 hour at 350°F (175°C).

Top and serve

  1. Once cooled, beat the egg whites with powdered sugar and vanilla to make a meringue to serve on top.

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

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

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Eggs
Egg proteins set as the pudding bakes, giving it a firm, sliceable body.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the hot milk and give the pudding bulk and a soft, tender crumb.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs set in, keeping the pudding moist.
Chocolate
Provides the main flavor and adds richness from its cocoa fat.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Baking the pudding. Egg proteins set with heat, and overbaking squeezes out liquid and makes the texture grainy or curdled. Bake only until the custard is just set in the centre.

“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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