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Dessert

Chocolate Cream Pie

A chocolate custard pie topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cocoa and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 357 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Cream Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix cocoa, corn starch, sugar, and salt.

  2. In another bowl, whisk together egg yolks, milk, and vanilla.

  3. Combine the two mixtures and cook in a double boiler until thick, stirring constantly.

  4. Pour the chocolate mixture into a baked pie crust.

Top and bake

  1. Make meringue by beating egg whites until stiff peaks form, then spread over the pie.

  2. Brown the meringue slightly 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. Cocoa + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

Sugar and vanilla 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

Cocoa
Provides the chocolate flavor and deep color of the filling.
Corn starch
Thickens the filling as it heats, giving it a sliceable body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the custard, adding richness and smoothness.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that forms the meringue topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and adds creaminess.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilize the whipped egg whites.

The step that matters

Cook the filling until thick. Corn starch only thickens fully when the mixture reaches a simmer-level heat while stirred, and undercooking leaves the filling runny. Constant stirring prevents the egg yolks from scrambling on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, sugar, egg, milk, vanilla):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Beansfits about as well
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, sugar, egg, milk, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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