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Dessert

Frozen Chocolate Custard

A chilled custard made with milk, egg yolks, chocolate, sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,287 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Frozen Chocolate Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Melt the chocolate over steam from a kettle.

  2. Boil the milk, then add the melted chocolate and stir until smooth.

  3. Beat the egg yolks until thick, then gradually add the sugar.

  4. Combine the egg mixture with the hot chocolate mixture, stirring constantly until slightly thickened.

Cool and freeze

  1. Let the mixture cool, then add the vanilla and cinnamon before freezing.

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. Vanilla + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Vanilla and sugar 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set with gentle heat, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the custard thickens and carries the chocolate flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the frozen texture by interfering with ice crystal growth.
Unsweetened chocolate
Provides the main chocolate flavour and deep colour.

The step that matters

Combine the egg mixture with the hot chocolate mixture. Adding hot liquid to yolks too quickly can scramble them. Stir constantly and keep the heat moderate so the custard thickens smoothly instead of curdling.

“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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