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Dessert

Chocolate Custard

A custard made with milk, eggs, chocolate, sugar, and vanilla, topped with whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eight yolks and two whites of the eggs until light.

  2. Boil the milk.

  3. When boiling, stir in the chocolate, sugar, and eggs.

  4. Pour the mixture into a clear pitcher.

  5. Place the pitcher in a pot of boiling water.

  6. Stir gently in one direction until it thickens to a cream.

  7. Strain when cold.

  8. Add the vanilla.

  9. Pour into cups.

Top and serve

  1. Beat the remaining egg whites to a stiff froth.

  2. Sweeten to taste and beat well.

  3. Top each cup with some of the froth.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, 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

Eggs
Thicken the custard as they gently set, and their whites whip into a light topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs thicken into a custard.
French chocolate
Provides the main chocolate flavour and colour of the custard.
White sugar
Sweetens the custard.
Vanilla
Adds aroma to the custard.

The step that matters

Stirring gently in the water bath. Eggs thicken as they heat, but high or uneven heat can scramble them and make the custard grainy. Stirring gently in one direction and keeping the water boiling, not the custard, helps it set smoothly into a cream.

“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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