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Dessert

Chocolate Pie

A chocolate custard pie with meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Combine chocolate and boiling water in a pot and boil for 15 minutes.

  2. Mix corn starch with cold milk in a bowl and let soak until dissolved, then add salt.

  3. Beat egg yolks, sugar, and butter together in a separate bowl.

  4. Combine all ingredients, stirring rapidly, and cook until well combined.

Assemble and bake

  1. Prepare and bake the pie crust.

  2. Pour the chocolate mixture into the baked crust.

  3. Beat egg whites to stiff peaks, gradually adding sugar.

  4. Spread the meringue over the pie.

  5. Bake until the meringue is golden brown.

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. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and color of the filling.
Corn starch
Thickens the filling as it cooks, giving it a set, sliceable body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the filling, adding richness and smoothness.
Egg whites
Whip into stiff peaks to form the meringue topping, adding airy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilize the whipped meringue.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling while stirring. Corn starch only thickens once the mixture reaches a boil, and stirring keeps it smooth. Stopping early leaves a thin filling, while letting it sit can scorch or lump it.

“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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