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Dessert

Chocolate Pudding

A steamed chocolate pudding made with chocolate, milk, breadcrumbs, sugar, vanilla, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 mixture

  1. Dissolve the chocolate in the milk over low heat.

  2. Add the sugar and vanilla.

  3. Pour over the breadcrumbs.

  4. Stir in the egg yolks.

Finish and steam

  1. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered basin and steam for 1 hour.

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. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, 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

Breadcrumbs
Soak up the chocolate milk to form the body of the pudding.
Eggs
Set the pudding and add structure, with whites folded in for lightness.
Chocolate
Provides the main flavour and richness of the pudding.
Milk
Melts the chocolate and moistens the breadcrumbs for a soft texture.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the beaten egg whites. Folding keeps the air beaten into the whites, which helps the pudding rise and stay light. Stirring vigorously would deflate the foam and make the pudding dense.

“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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