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Dessert

Chocolate Pudding

A baked chocolate pudding made with sugar, milk, butter, flour, egg, baking powder, and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chocolate Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Melt the chocolate in the milk.

  3. Beat the egg and mix all ingredients together lightly.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes.

  3. Serve hot with sauce.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps the batter feel smooth and moist.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it bakes.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set into a soft, sliceable texture when baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the pudding rises and becomes lighter.
Chocolate
Gives the pudding its main flavour and a deep brown colour.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps it brown slightly at the edges.

The step that matters

Beat the egg and mix lightly. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which can make the pudding tough and dense. Mixing only until combined keeps the texture tender while the egg still binds the batter.

“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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