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Dessert

Chocolate Pie

A chocolate pie made with sugar, milk, butter, flour, chocolate, vanilla, eggs, whipped cream, and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, mix sugar, flour, and butter.

  2. Add grated chocolate and vanilla, then boil until thick.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the yolks of 3 eggs.

Assemble and top

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust.

  2. Top with whipped cream and the beaten egg whites.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the filling and enrich its custard texture as it cooks.
Flour
Thickens the chocolate mixture so it sets rather than staying runny.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps balance the bitterness of the chocolate.
Grated chocolate
Provides the main chocolate flavor and color of the filling.
Egg whites
Whipped stiff and sweetened, they form a light, airy topping.

The step that matters

Remove from heat and stir in the yolks of 3 eggs. Adding yolks to a boiling mixture can scramble them. Taking the pan off the heat first lets the yolks blend in smoothly and thicken gently without curdling.

“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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