Skip to main content
Dessert

Pouding Au Chocolat Meringue

A chocolate pudding topped with a meringue layer.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Pouding Au Chocolat Meringue

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. Mix the cornflour with a little cold milk.

  2. Boil the remainder of the milk with the chocolate and 3 oz. of sugar.

  3. Stir in the cornflour and cook over heat until thickened, about 10 minutes.

  4. Stir in the yolks of 3 eggs and 1 whole egg, then add the vanilla essence and mix well.

  5. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered pudding or cake tin.

Bake and top

  1. Cook in a moderate oven (350 °F / 175 °C) in a bain-marie for about 45 minutes or bake for 30 minutes.

  2. Beat the remaining egg whites to stiff peaks, then mix with the leftover sugar and a little vanilla essence.

  3. When the pudding is done, turn it out onto a dish and let it cool slightly.

  4. Quickly cover with the egg-white mixture, dredge with sugar, and bake in a moderate oven for about 10 minutes.

  5. Optionally, stick a few shredded almonds into the pudding before serving.

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. Vanilla + sugartop 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).

Vanilla and sugar 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
Yolks thicken the custard and whites whip into the stiff meringue topping.
Cornflour
Starch thickens the milk and chocolate mixture into a set custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and keeps it moist.
Unsweetened chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and deep colour of the pudding.
Caster sugar
Sweetens the custard and the meringue topping, and helps the topping brown.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites only hold air when beaten fully and free of any yolk or grease. Under-beaten or greasy whites collapse in the oven, so the topping goes flat and weeping.

“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.

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipes