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Dessert

Chocolate Pie

A chocolate pie made with grated chocolate, cornstarch, water, eggs, sugar, salt, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Mix the grated chocolate and cornstarch with half of the cold water.

  2. Add the sugar, egg yolks, salt, and the remaining cold water to the mixture.

  3. Set the mixture into a double boiler and cook until thick.

Finish the pie

  1. Use the egg whites to make the topping for the pie.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and adds body to the filling.
Cornstarch
Thickens the filling as its starch swells and sets when heated in liquid.
Eggs
Add richness and help thicken the custard as they cook.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling until thick. Cornstarch only thickens once the mixture is hot enough for its starch to swell, and the eggs set as they heat. Cooking gently while stirring prevents lumps and scorching, and the filling should be thick enough to coat a spoon.

“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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