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Dessert

Cocoa Pudding

A baked pudding made from stale bread, milk, butter, sugar, cocoa, vanilla, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cocoa and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 357 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Cocoa Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Boil the bread in the milk, stirring continually until it thickens into a paste.

  2. Add the butter, sugar, cocoa, and vanilla, mixing well.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the yolks of the eggs.

Bake

  1. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  2. Pour into a buttered tart dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

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. Cocoa + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

Bread
Thickens the milk into a paste that gives the pudding its body.
Eggs
Set when baked to give the pudding structure, and the beaten whites add lightness.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the bread softens in and keeps the custard moist.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture and mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the cocoa.
Cocoa
Gives the pudding its chocolate flavour and colour.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Egg whites hold air when beaten, and overmixing knocks that air out, so the pudding bakes up less light and airy.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, butter, sugar, vanilla, egg):

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Cocoathe original
  3. Pecansfits about as well
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, butter, sugar, vanilla, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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