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Dessert

Chocolate Pudding

A boiled chocolate pudding made with eggs, soda crackers, sugar, chocolate, and milk.

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

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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until well combined.

  3. Dissolve the chocolate in a little milk before adding it to the mixture.

Make the pudding

  1. Add the crushed soda crackers and grated chocolate to the mixture.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold them into the mixture.

  3. Grease a pudding mold and pour the mixture in.

  4. Boil in a pot of water for one hour.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + milktop 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).

Sugar and milk 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

Eggs
Yolks bind the batter and whites, whipped to stiff peaks, give the pudding its light, airy lift.
Soda crackers
Crushed crackers add body and absorb moisture, giving the pudding a soft, set texture.
Unsweetened chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and deep color of the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the yolks blend smoothly.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that gives the pudding its lift. Stirring them in vigorously deflates the foam, leaving a dense pudding. Fold gently with a spatula until no white streaks remain.

“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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