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Dessert

Chocolate Pudding

A baked chocolate pudding made with bread crumbs, chocolate, milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla.

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 Pudding

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 custard

  1. In a farina kettle, boil the bread crumbs, grated chocolate, and milk until it thickens.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the egg yolks and sugar, stirring continuously.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until light, then add sugar and vanilla to the beaten whites.

  2. Spread the egg white mixture on top.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes, covering it.

  4. Remove the cover.

  5. Brown the top slightly before finishing, then brown lightly.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Bread crumbs
Thicken the milk and give the pudding body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the custard as they set with heat.
Egg whites
Beaten into a light meringue topping that puffs and sets while baking.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens into the custard.
Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and richness of the pudding.

The step that matters

Stirring the hot mixture into the egg yolks. Pouring hot liquid onto yolks too quickly can scramble them. Stirring constantly while adding it gradually tempers the yolks so the custard stays smooth.

“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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