Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Pie

A chocolate custard pie topped with meringue baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, mix sugar, cornstarch, chocolate, and hot milk.

  2. Cook over a hot water bath for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  3. Add the yolks of the eggs and cook for a few more minutes.

  4. Pour the mixture into a baked pie crust.

Top and brown

  1. Make meringue by beating the egg whites and adding icing sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pie and brown in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, sliceable custard.
Egg yolks
Enrich the filling and help it set as it cooks, adding richness and body.
Chocolate
Provides the main chocolate flavour and some body to the filling.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that forms the meringue topping and browns in the oven.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, adding moisture and softness.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling over the hot water bath. Cornstarch thickens only when the mixture gets hot enough, and stirring keeps it smooth and prevents lumps or scorching. Stir gently and keep the mixture below a hard boil so it does not curdle or stick once the egg yolks are added.

“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.

More chocolate pie recipes

Filling 3 See all 137 →

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipesChocolate Drop CookiesChocolate Drop Cookies50 recipes