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Chocolate Custard Cream

A chocolate-flavored custard cream thickened with gelatin and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Custard Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk and sugar together.

  2. Mix the chocolate with a little cold water, then add it to the milk mixture along with the gelatine.

  3. Stir until dissolved, then add the well-beaten eggs.

  4. Cook without boiling until the cream thickens.

  5. Remove from heat and add vanilla to taste.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into a wet mold and allow to set.

  2. Turn out and serve with cold custard poured around.

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
Thicken the cream as they cook gently and help give it a rich, set body.
Gelatine
Sets the cooled cream into a firm shape that holds when turned out of the mold.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs, sugar and chocolate are dissolved and cooked into.
Chocolate or cocoa
Provides the main flavour and dark colour of the cream.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Cook without boiling until the cream thickens. Egg proteins set when heated, but at high heat they curdle and turn grainy. Holding the mixture just below boiling lets the eggs thicken it smoothly.

“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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