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Dessert

Chocolate Custard

A custard made with chocolate, milk, eggs, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk 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 Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Grate the chocolate and add it to the milk.

  2. Heat the mixture until warm, stirring to dissolve the chocolate.

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

  4. Slowly add the warm chocolate milk to the egg mixture, stirring constantly.

  5. Return the mixture to the heat and cook until thickened, stirring frequently.

  6. Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form and fold them into the custard.

Serve

  1. Pour the custard into serving dishes and chill 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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

Vanilla and sugar 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 custard as they cook and add richness to its texture.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the custard and add airy volume.
Vanilla chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and color of the custard.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the egg yolks blend smoothly.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base that carries the chocolate and sets into the custard.

The step that matters

Return the mixture to the heat and cook until thickened, stirring frequently.. Egg proteins set as they heat, so cooking too hard or without stirring can scramble the eggs and leave lumps. Stop once the custard coats a spoon.

“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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