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Dessert

Carteret Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake made with grated chocolate, sugar, eggs, milk, butter, flour, baking powder, and vanilla.

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

Carteret 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.

Make the chocolate filling

  1. Combine grated chocolate, 1 cup sugar, egg yolk, and ½ cup milk in a saucepan.

  2. Boil until thickened, then set aside to cool.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together 1 cup sugar and 4 cups butter in a large bowl until light and fluffy.

  2. Add 4 cups milk to the creamed mixture.

  3. Add 2½ cups sifted flour to the mixture.

  4. Add 2 teaspoons baking powder to the mixture. Mix well.

  5. Gently fold in the cooled chocolate mixture and the beaten eggs.

  6. Add vanilla extract to taste. Mix until combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared cake pan.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

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. Milk + buttertop 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness as they set during baking, binding the batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.
Grated chocolate
Supplies the chocolate flavour and richness of the cake.

The step that matters

Fold in the cooled chocolate mixture gently. The chocolate mixture must be cooled before folding, so it does not melt or scramble the eggs and butter. Gentle folding keeps the air trapped in the creamed batter, which helps the cake stay light.

“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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