Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Pie

A chocolate filling baked in a pie crust, topped with stiff‑whipped egg‑white frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. Combine milk, cornstarch, egg yolks, and grated chocolate in a saucepan.

  2. Sweeten to taste.

  3. Cook over medium heat until thickened.

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

Frost and bake

  1. Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Spread the whipped egg whites over the pie when cool.

  3. Place the pie in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

  4. Brown the frosting slightly.

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. Milk + chocolatetop 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard filling.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture as it heats, giving the filling body.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help set the custard filling.
Grated chocolate
Gives the filling its chocolate flavor and color.
Egg whites
Whipped into a meringue topping that gives a light, airy frosting.

The step that matters

Cook over medium heat until thickened. Cornstarch only thickens fully when the mixture reaches a boil and is stirred, so undercooking leaves a thin filling. Heating the egg yolks too hard or too fast can curdle them.

“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.

More chocolate pie recipes

Filling 3 See all 137 →

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipesChocolate Drop CookiesChocolate Drop Cookies50 recipes