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Dessert

Chocolate Pudding

A chocolate pudding topped with a browned meringue.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Heat 1 quart of milk in a saucepan until boiling, reserving ½ cup.

  2. In a bowl, mix grated chocolate, cornstarch, egg yolks, and reserved milk until smooth.

  3. Once the milk boils, stir in the chocolate mixture and cook, stirring constantly, until it thickens.

  4. Add 1 tablespoon of sugar and pour the mixture into a dish.

Top and brown

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add 2 tablespoons of sugar and flavoring.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pudding and brown 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. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Milk + chocolatetop 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. Egg + sugartop 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens into the pudding.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help thicken the custard as it cooks.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, set pudding.
Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and colour of the pudding.
Egg whites
Whip into a stiff foam that forms the meringue topping.

The step that matters

Cooking the thickened pudding. Cornstarch needs to reach a full boil while you stir constantly; stirring prevents scorching on the bottom and lumps, and the starch only thickens fully once it boils.

“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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