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Dessert

Chocolate

A steamed chocolate pudding made with chocolate, milk, bread crumbs, butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a saucepan, combine the milk and chocolate, and dissolve the chocolate.

  2. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  3. Separate the eggs, whipping the whites until stiff.

Make the pudding

  1. Add the yolks and a few crumbs to the butter and sugar, mixing thoroughly.

  2. Incorporate the dissolved chocolate and the remaining crumbs, mixing well.

  3. Gently fold in the whipped egg whites.

  4. Pour the mixture into a greased mold, cover with greased paper, and steam for about 45 minutes.

Serve

  1. Turn the pudding onto a hot dish and serve with custard 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. 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  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
Whipped whites give the pudding lightness, and the yolks enrich its set structure.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the liquid and give the pudding body without making it dense.
Chocolate
Provides the main flavour and deep colour of the pudding.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender, moist texture when creamed with sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps create a light, creamed base with the butter.
Milk
Melts the chocolate and adds moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the whipped egg whites. Whipped whites trap air that gives the pudding its lightness. Stirring or beating them in vigorously knocks out that air, leaving a denser, heavier 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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