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Cocoa Meringue

A chocolate custard topped with a baked meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Cocoa Meringue

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 chocolate custard

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Mix the flour and cocoa with a little cold milk until smooth.

  3. Add the flour and cocoa mixture to the hot milk and cook until thick, stirring constantly.

  4. Lightly beat the egg yolks. Mix in the sugar and salt.

  5. Add the yolk mixture to the chocolate mixture and cook until the yolks thicken.

  6. Remove from heat and let cool.

  7. Stir in the vanilla extract.

Make the meringue and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gradually add the sugar and vanilla extract to the egg whites, continuing to beat until glossy.

  3. Spread the meringue over the chocolate mixture.

  4. Brown in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°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. 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. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + cocoa powdertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,244 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that thickens when heated.
Flour
Thickens the custard so it holds a sliceable, spoonable body.
Cocoa powder
Provides the chocolate flavor and color of the custard.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they cook and add richness.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that forms the structure of the meringue.

The step that matters

Cooking the yolks into the custard. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently, but overheating them can curdle or scramble them. Stirring steadily over controlled heat keeps the custard 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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