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Dessert

Chocolate Cream Pie

A chocolate custard filling baked in a pre‑baked pie crust, topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 Cream Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine milk, sugar, cocoa powder, cornstarch, and salt.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thickened.

  3. In a small bowl, whisk egg yolks, then gradually add a bit of the hot mixture to temper the eggs.

  4. Stir the egg mixture back into the saucepan and cook for 2 more minutes.

  5. Remove from heat and stir in butter and vanilla.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour filling into the pre-baked pie crust and let cool.

  2. Top with whipped cream before serving.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the filling and add richness and a smooth, custard-like texture.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture as it heats, giving the filling body that sets when cooled.
Cocoa powder
Provides the chocolate flavor and deep color of the filling.
Butter
Adds fat for a silky mouthfeel and a glossy finish to the filling.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch and yolks thicken into a custard.

The step that matters

Tempering the egg yolks. Adding hot mixture to the yolks gradually, while whisking, warms them gently. Dumping them into hot liquid can scramble the eggs into lumps instead of a smooth filling.

“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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