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Dessert

Chocolate Pudding

A steamed chocolate custard made with chocolate, milk, cake crumbs, butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 chocolate base

  1. Dissolve the chocolate in the milk and boil for 1 minute.

  2. Allow to cool, then add the cream.

Mix the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Beat in the egg yolks and the dissolved chocolate with the cake crumbs.

  3. Let soak for 10 minutes.

  4. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites and vanilla.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased basin or china mold and steam steadily for 1 to 1.5 hours until firm.

  2. Turn onto a hot dish and pour custard sauce around it.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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
Whites trap air for lift, and yolks set as the pudding steams firm.
Cake crumbs
Add body and soak up the liquid so the pudding holds its shape.
Chocolate
Provides the main flavor and richness of the pudding.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the texture tender and rich.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the pudding soft.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps tenderize the batter when creamed with butter.

The step that matters

Steam steadily and do not let the water boil dry. Gentle, even steam heat sets the eggs slowly into a firm, smooth pudding. Rough boiling or dry pans can make the texture spongy, cracked or uneven.

“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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