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Chocolate Custards

A chilled chocolate custard topped with beaten egg whites and a hint of grape jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Chocolate Custards

Why it works: Milk and grape are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,682 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Chocolate Custards

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk with the grated chocolate.

Prepare the topping

  1. Separate the egg whites and beat them with sugar until stiff.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the custard into hot glasses.

  2. Top the custards with the beaten egg whites.

  3. Add a little grape jelly on top of the froth.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + grapetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,682 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 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 of the custard, giving it body and a creamy texture.
Grated chocolate
Adds chocolate flavour and colour to the milk.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that gives the topping its light, airy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and helps stabilise the beaten egg whites.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg white proteins trap air as they whip. If they are under-beaten the foam will slump on the custard, and if over-beaten they turn dry and grainy. Stop when the peaks stand upright.

Swap the grape

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chocolate, milk, egg, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, milk, egg, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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