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Dessert

Chocolate Custard

A custard made with milk, chocolate, cornstarch, sugar, vanilla, and cold milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Chocolate Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Mix the grated chocolate, cornstarch, and sugar in a bowl.

  2. Add the cold milk and stir until smooth.

  3. Pour the mixture into the boiling scalded milk.

  4. Cook for 15 minutes in a double boiler, stirring occasionally.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat, add vanilla, and pour into cups or glasses.

  2. Let 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Cornstarch
Thickens the milk into a smooth custard as it heats and gelatinizes.
Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and dark colour of the custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and carries the thickening starch.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the chocolate's bitterness.

The step that matters

Stirring the mixture into the boiling milk. Starch clumps if it hits hot liquid unevenly, so stir the mixture smoothly as it goes in. Cornstarch needs to be fully hydrated and cooked for the custard to thicken evenly and lose its raw starchy taste.

“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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