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Chocolate Custard

Chocolate custard made with chocolate, milk, sugar, egg yolks, cornstarch, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Melt the chocolate

  1. Break the chocolate into 6 pieces.

  2. Place the pieces in a pan over boiling water.

  3. Add enough milk to barely cover the chocolate, then stir until smooth.

Make the custard

  1. Reserve 3 tablespoons of milk to dissolve the cornstarch.

  2. Beat the egg yolks in a bowl.

  3. Mix in the sugar and dissolved cornstarch.

  4. Slowly stir this mixture into the boiling chocolate milk.

Cook and serve

  1. Add a pinch of salt.

  2. Cook for a few minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Serve cold with white cake.

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. 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. Sugar + eggtop 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

Chocolate
Provides the main flavor and makes the custard rich and dense.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and carries the chocolate.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set with heat and add richness.
Cornstarch
Thickens the custard by swelling in hot liquid, giving it a smooth body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Cook the custard while stirring constantly. Egg yolks can curdle and turn grainy if they overheat, while cornstarch needs to reach a boil to reach full thickness. Constant stirring spreads heat evenly and 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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