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Dessert

Chocolate Pudding

A steamed chocolate pudding made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, water, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Melt the chocolate in the water and add it to the butter mixture, mixing well.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, beating continuously.

  4. Sift the flour and baking powder together, then gently fold into the mixture.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a greased basin and steam for 1 to 1.5 hours.

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. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during steaming.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together after steaming.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the pudding rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps create a light, airy creamed base.
Chocolate
Gives the pudding its main flavour and colour.

The step that matters

Folding in the flour and baking powder. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the creamed butter and eggs. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which makes the pudding dense and tough instead of light.

“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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