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Dessert

Chocolate Pie

A chocolate custard pie topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chocolate filling

  1. Combine chocolate and milk in a saucepan.

  2. Boil until chocolate is melted.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool.

  4. Beat egg yolks until light.

  5. Add sugar and mix well.

  6. Combine chocolate mixture with egg yolk mixture.

  7. Pour into pie crust.

Top with meringue

  1. Whip egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Spread over pie as meringue.

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. Egg + sugartop 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

Unsweetened chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and body of the filling.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the chocolate melts into and the custard sets from.
Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as they set and add richness.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that forms the meringue topping.

The step that matters

Whip egg whites until stiff peaks form. Egg whites must be beaten until they hold stiff peaks so the meringue stays airy and holds its shape when baked or spread. Underbeaten whites weep and collapse, while overbeaten whites turn grainy and dry.

“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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