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Chocolate Custard Pie

Chocolate custard pie topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the custard

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the egg yolks and whole egg together in a bowl.

  3. Add the sugar, salt, and cocoa powder to the egg mixture.

  4. Slowly add the hot milk while stirring, then strain the mixture.

  5. Cool the mixture and add the vanilla extract.

Bake and top with meringue

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake until set.

  2. Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form and spread over the top as meringue.

  3. Return to the oven and bake until the meringue is golden.

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

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

  3. Cocoa powder + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Sugar + cocoa powdertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Whole egg
Adds structure to the custard so it sets firm enough to slice.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps keep the egg proteins tender.
Cocoa powder
Provides the chocolate flavor and deep color of the custard.
Hot milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs thicken into a custard.
Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks to form the meringue topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Adding the hot milk to the eggs. Pouring hot milk in slowly while stirring keeps the eggs from scrambling. Straining afterward removes any small cooked bits, so the custard stays smooth.

“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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