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Dessert

Chocolate Pie

Chocolate pie with a chocolate custard filling and whipped egg white icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

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 filling

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler until hot.

  2. Dissolve the grated chocolate in a little boiling water, then stir the chocolate into the hot milk.

  3. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until creamy.

  4. Add the chocolate mixture and flour to the egg yolk mixture and stir the mixture thoroughly.

  5. Pour the filling into the pie crust.

Bake and top

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

  2. Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.

  3. Gradually add 2 tablespoons of sugar to make icing.

  4. Spread the icing over the baked pie.

  5. Brown slightly in the oven.

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as they set, giving it a rich, custard-like body.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that forms the light, soft icing on top.
Flour
Stabilises the filling so it sets thick rather than runny.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard filling.
Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and colour of the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilise the whipped egg white icing.

The step that matters

Bake until set, then brown the icing lightly. Underbaked egg yolk filling will stay runny, while overbaking can cause weeping and toughen the custard. Browning the icing should be brief, since meringue-style toppings darken quickly.

“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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