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Dessert

Chocolate Cream

Chocolate custard made with milk, chocolate, egg yolks, and sugar, cooked slowly and served chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Chocolate Cream

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 Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chocolate milk

  1. Break the chocolate into small pieces and pour the milk over it.

  2. Let it sit until dissolved.

  3. Boil the chocolate and milk mixture slowly for 10 minutes.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until well combined.

  2. Mix the egg yolk mixture with the chocolate milk.

Cook and cool

  1. Pour the mixture into cups and place them in a saucepan of boiling water, covering halfway.

  2. Simmer for 20 minutes with the saucepan covered.

  3. Remove the cups and place them in a very cold place to cool.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 and adds moisture and richness to the custard.
Chocolate
Gives the custard its flavour and adds fat for a smooth, rich texture.
Egg yolks
Set as they heat, thickening the custard and giving it structure.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Cooking the cups gently in the water bath. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set with heat. Too much heat cooks them too fast, causing curdling and a grainy texture instead of 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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