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Dessert

Chocolate Pie

A chocolate custard pie made with cornstarch or flour, sugar, chocolate, milk, egg yolks, salt, and vanilla, topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Mix cornstarch, sugar, and chocolate in a bowl, then add hot milk.

  2. Cook over hot water for 45 minutes, stirring frequently.

  3. Add egg yolks and salt, then cook for 3 more minutes.

  4. Remove from heat, cool slightly, and add vanilla.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour into a baked pie shell.

  2. Cover with meringue.

  3. Brown in a slow oven at 275°F (135°C).

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. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, 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

Cornstarch
Swells in the hot milk and thickens the filling into a set custard.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and add further thickening as they heat.
Chocolate
Gives the filling its chocolate flavor and color.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling.
Vanilla
Adds aroma that rounds out the chocolate flavor.

The step that matters

Cook the filling over hot water, stirring often. Starch thickens as it heats, and stirring keeps it smooth and prevents scorching. Egg yolks can curdle or turn grainy if the custard overheats, so gentle, steady heat matters.

“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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