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Dessert

Chocolate Bavarian Cream

A chocolate custard dessert made with gelatin, cream, milk, and chocolate, finished with whipped cream.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 20 minutes.

  2. Whip the heavy cream until soft peaks form.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk and add the grated chocolate, stirring until melted.

  2. Remove from heat, add the soaked gelatine, and stir until dissolved.

  3. Sweeten with sugar and flavor with vanilla.

  4. Pour into a pan to cool, stirring until it begins to thicken.

Set and serve

  1. Fold in the whipped cream until well combined.

  2. Pour into a mold and refrigerate until hardened.

  3. Serve with additional whipped cream.

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

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

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid chocolate mixture into a firm, sliceable cream when chilled.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when folded into the custard.
Chocolate
Provides the main flavor and gives the cream its color and body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the chocolate melts into and the gelatine sets.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatine. Gelatine must be fully dissolved into the warm mixture, not boiled, and the custard must only thicken slightly before folding in the cream. If it cools too far, it sets in lumps; if it is boiled, its setting power weakens.

“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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