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Dessert

Chocolate Pudding

A steamed chocolate pudding made with sugar, egg, milk, melted chocolate, baking powder, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix sugar, egg, and milk until well combined. Stir in melted chocolate.

  2. Sift baking powder with flour and add to the mixture.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a suitable steaming dish.

  2. Steam for 2 hours.

  3. Serve with sauce.

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. Milk + chocolatetop 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

Flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the pudding its body and structure.
Egg
Binds the batter and sets during steaming to give the pudding firmness.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the pudding rise and become light.
Milk
Adds moisture and hydrates the flour so the batter becomes a pourable mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to the pudding's tender texture.
Chocolate
Provides the main flavour and colours the batter.

The step that matters

Sift baking powder with flour and add to the mixture. Baking powder must be evenly distributed through the batter so the pudding rises uniformly. Clumps can cause dense spots or pockets of bitter leavening.

“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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