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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake topped with a chocolate icing made from grated chocolate, sugar, milk, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cake

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs.

  3. Add the milk.

  4. Mix well.

  5. Sift together the flour and baking powder.

  6. Add the sifted flour and baking powder to the batter alternately with the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  7. Flavor the batter with vanilla.

Make the icing

  1. Grate the chocolate.

  2. Combine the grated chocolate with sugar and milk in a saucepan.

  3. Boil the mixture until thick.

  4. Stir in the beaten egg.

  5. Let the icing cool.

Assemble

  1. Spread the icing on the cooled cake.

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. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Yolks add richness and structure, while whipped whites lighten the batter and help it rise.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb once the batter sets.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds tenderness and fat for a soft crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and turn light.
Baker's chocolate
Gives the icing its chocolate flavor and body once melted and thickened.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, when boiled, thickens the icing.

The step that matters

Boil the chocolate icing until thick. Boiling evaporates water and concentrates sugar, so the icing thickens enough to spread. Under-boiled icing stays runny and soaks into the cake, while over-boiled icing can turn grainy or hard as it cools.

“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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