Why it works: Milk and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,128 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓
Chocolate Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the chocolate base
Boil the milk in a pot.
Sweeten the milk to taste.
Dissolve the chocolate in a small amount of the hot milk.
Add the chocolate mixture to the pot.
Stir the mixture constantly.
Boil until the mixture thickens slightly.
Add the eggs and finish
Beat the egg yolks in a bowl.
Add the beaten yolks to the chocolate mixture.
Let the mixture cool.
Strain the mixture.
Return the strained mixture to the pot.
Boil again until it reaches the consistency of rich custard.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,128 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Chocolate + eggtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,448 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the chocolate dissolves into and the custard sets from.
- Chocolate
- Provides the main flavor and, once melted into the milk, thickens the base.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the cream as they set, giving it a rich, custard-like texture.
The step that matters
Stirring the mixture constantly. Milk and egg proteins can scorch or curdle on the bottom of the pot when heated. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly, keeping the custard smooth and thickening it gradually.
“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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