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Dessert

Devil Food Cake

A chocolate cake with a sweet chocolate filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Devil Food Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the butter and brown sugar.

  2. Add sour milk, egg yolks, and baking soda, then mix well.

  3. Gradually add the flour and mix until smooth.

Add the chocolate

  1. In a separate pot, combine grated chocolate, granulated sugar, and sweet milk.

  2. Heat until dissolved but do not boil.

  3. Stir the chocolate mixture into the batter once it is cool.

Make the filling

  1. Boil the butter, brown sugar, and sweet milk together for 20 minutes.

  2. Stir until cool.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it sets.
Egg yolks
Add richness, moisture, and emulsifying fat that helps the batter blend smoothly.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce carbon dioxide, helping the cake rise and lighten.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds moisture, sweetness, and a deeper color and caramel flavor.
Grated chocolate
Contributes chocolate flavor, dark color, and fat to the cake.

The step that matters

Add the chocolate mixture only once it is cool. Adding the hot chocolate mixture to the batter can melt the butter and partly cook the egg yolks, which weakens the batter's emulsion and its ability to rise evenly.

“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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