Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Pie

A chocolate pie made with milk, grated chocolate, sugar, eggs, baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Pie

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.

Make the filling

  1. Heat the milk and grated chocolate together in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, beat the sugar and egg yolks until creamy.

  3. Combine the heated milk and chocolate mixture with the egg yolk mixture.

Bake and brown

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Once baked, spread the beaten egg whites over the top 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. Sugar + eggtop 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 of the custard filling, giving it body and a smooth texture.
Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and color of the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the egg yolks whip to a creamy texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set, giving the pie a rich, firm body.
Egg whites
Whipped and spread on top, they set and brown to form a light meringue topping.

The step that matters

Spread the beaten egg whites over the top and brown in the oven. Egg whites need to be beaten to stiff peaks before spreading so they hold their shape. Watch closely while browning, since sugar and proteins in the meringue darken quickly and can scorch.

“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.

More chocolate pie recipes

Filling 3 See all 137 →

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipesChocolate Drop CookiesChocolate Drop Cookies50 recipes