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Dessert

Chocolate Pudding

Chocolate pudding made with milk, butter, sugar, grated chocolate, sponge cake soaked in sherry, topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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.

Make the chocolate sauce

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Add the butter, sugar, and grated chocolate to the boiling milk and stir until melted.

Assemble and bake

  1. Soak the sponge cake slices in sherry and place them in a serving dish.

  2. Pour the chocolate mixture over the soaked sponge cake.

  3. Beat the egg whites with sugar until stiff peaks form, then spread over the chocolate mixture.

  4. Lightly brown in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

Serve

  1. Serve hot or cold with custard.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg whites whipped to stiff peaks form a light meringue topping that sets and browns in the oven.
Sponge cake
Soaked in sherry, it absorbs the liquid and forms a moist, tender base for the pudding.
Chocolate
Melted into the hot milk, it gives the pudding its chocolate flavour and rich body.
Butter
Melted into the chocolate mixture, it adds richness and a smooth, soft texture.
Milk
Heated and combined with chocolate and butter, it forms the moist, creamy base of the sauce.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Under-beaten whites collapse and weep, while over-beaten whites turn grainy and dry. Stiff, glossy peaks trap air that sets and lightly browns in the oven.

“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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