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Chocolate Cream Pie

A chocolate custard filling baked in a pre‑baked puff pastry shell.

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 Cream Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan until it is scalding.

  2. Add the chocolate to the hot milk and stir until melted.

  3. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with the sugar until smooth.

  4. Gradually add the chocolate mixture to the egg yolks, mixing well.

Assemble the pie

  1. Fold in the beaten egg whites and add vanilla extract.

  2. Pour the filling into the pre-baked puff pastry shell.

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. 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard-style filling.
Egg yolks
Thicken the filling and add richness as they set gently with heat.
Egg whites
Beaten and folded in to lighten the filling's texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilise the egg yolks while beating.
Baker's chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and firms the filling as it cools.

The step that matters

Adding the chocolate mixture to the egg yolks. Pouring hot liquid into yolks too quickly can scramble them. Adding it gradually while mixing tempers the yolks so the filling stays smooth and thickens evenly.

“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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