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Dessert

Chocolate Pudding

A milk-based chocolate pudding thickened with corn starch and sweetened with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Mix ½ cup of milk with 3 tablespoons of corn starch until smooth.

  2. Boil the remaining milk in a pan set in hot water.

  3. Stir in 1 cup of sugar and a pinch of salt.

  4. Add 2 tablespoons of grated chocolate once the milk is hot.

  5. Stir in the corn starch mixture when it boils.

  6. Stir often until thickened.

Chill and serve

  1. Pour into a cold dish.

  2. Flavor with ½ teaspoon of vanilla.

  3. Serve cold.

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. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens into a creamy custard.
Corn starch
Swells and thickens the hot milk as it boils, giving the pudding its body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.
Grated chocolate
Provides the main chocolate flavor and a deep brown color.
Vanilla
Adds a warm aroma that rounds out the chocolate flavor.

The step that matters

Stir the cornstarch mixture into boiling milk. Cornstarch thickens only when it reaches a boil and its granules swell. Adding it to milk that is not yet boiling, or stopping the stirring, can leave lumps and an uneven, thin pudding.

“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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