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Dessert

Chocolate Pie

A custard pie made with milk, sugar, chocolate, eggs, vanilla, baked in a crust and topped with meringue.

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 Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Dissolve the chocolate in hot water.

  2. Combine the dissolved chocolate with milk and bring to a boil, stirring to keep smooth.

  3. Separate the eggs, reserving 3 whites for meringue.

  4. Beat the yolks and slowly pour the boiling chocolate mixture over them, stirring constantly to create a smooth custard.

  5. Once cool, add vanilla.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the custard into the pie crust and bake until firm.

  2. Top with meringue and brown it 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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + chocolatetop 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).

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
Yolks thicken the custard and the whites form the meringue topping.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that sets into a creamy custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the meringue stay stable.
Bitter chocolate
Gives the pie its chocolate flavor and deep color.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling chocolate mixture to the yolks. Pouring hot liquid into yolks too fast can scramble them. Pouring slowly while stirring constantly tempers the eggs so they thicken into a smooth custard.

“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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