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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake made with brown sugar, butter, egg, sour milk, flour, baking soda, baking powder, grated chocolate, boiling water, and vanilla extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, cream together the brown sugar and butter.

  3. Add the egg and sour milk, mixing well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and baking powder.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.

  6. Melt the grated chocolate in boiling water and stir into the batter.

  7. Add vanilla extract and mix until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 30-35 minutes.

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. 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

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown and stay tender.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Egg
Helps bind the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise and tenderize the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as the batter bakes.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda and sour milk to the batter. Baking soda needs an acid to react and produce gas for rising. Mixing the batter promptly after the sour milk and baking soda are combined keeps that gas in the batter, so the cake rises well.

“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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