Why it works: Chocolate and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,404 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Chocolate Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Simmer grated chocolate in boiling water for a few minutes.
In a bowl, mix egg yolks, corn starch, and sugar.
Add the chocolate mixture to the egg yolk mixture.
Boil until thick like custard.
Assemble and bake
Prepare a pie crust.
Bake the crust.
Pour the chocolate filling into the crust.
Beat egg whites to stiff peaks.
Spread the beaten egg whites over the filling.
Brown the top in the oven.
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.
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Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,404 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Chocolate + corntop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together987 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,168 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Chocolate + eggtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,448 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the filling and add richness to the custard.
- Corn starch
- Thickens the custard as it boils, giving it body.
- Egg whites
- Beaten to stiff peaks, they form a light topping that browns in the oven.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and helps balance the bitterness of the chocolate.
- Grated chocolate
- Provides the chocolate flavor of the filling.
The step that matters
Boil until thick like custard. Cornstarch only thickens fully when the mixture reaches a boil, and the egg yolks need to be cooked through. Stopping early leaves a runny filling that will not set when cooled.
“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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