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Dessert

Chocolate Pie

A chocolate pie with a pastry crust, chocolate filling, and meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and chocolate 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

Make the filling

  1. Combine sugar, chocolate, egg yolks, milk, and flour in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thick.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pre-bake the pie crust until lightly golden.

  2. Pour the chocolate mixture into the crust.

  3. Bake again until set.

  4. Top with meringue.

  5. Bake until the meringue is golden.

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. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 add richness and structure as they set with heat.
Flour
Thickens the chocolate filling so it sets firm enough to slice.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps give the meringue its golden browning.
Baker's chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and body of the filling.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base that the yolks and flour thicken into custard.

The step that matters

Cook the filling until thick. Egg yolks and flour thicken only when the mixture reaches a simmer-level heat while stirred constantly. Stopping too early leaves a runny filling, and letting it sit too long over heat can scorch or curdle the yolks.

“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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