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Dessert

Chocoijite Custards

A custard made with beet chocolate, water, milk, lemon peel or vanilla, sugar, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Chocoijite Custards

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chocolate base

  1. Dissolve the chocolate gently over the fire in the water until smooth.

  2. Boil the mixture, then add the milk flavored with lemon peel or vanilla and sugar.

  3. Once boiling, stir in the beaten eggs.

Thicken and serve

  1. Pour the custard into a jar or jug.

  2. Place the jar or jug in a pan of boiling water.

  3. Stir continuously until thick.

  4. Cool before serving.

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

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

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Set and thicken the custard as they cook, giving it body.
Milk
Provides the liquid base and creaminess of the custard.
Beet chocolate
Gives the custard its chocolate flavor and color.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Stir continuously until thick. Egg proteins set when heated, so the custard can curdle or scramble if it overheats or is left unstirred. Constant stirring in the gentle water bath keeps the heat even and the texture smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, milk, sugar, egg. 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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