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Dessert

German Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake made by melting chocolate, mixing with milk, sugar, egg yolk, vanilla, and spreading between layers, topped with icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

German Chocolate Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler over hot water.

  2. Once melted, add the milk and sugar, stirring until smooth and hot.

  3. Remove from heat and mix in the egg yolk and vanilla.

  4. Allow the mixture to cool.

Assemble

  1. Spread the cream filling between each layer of cake.

  2. Ice the top layer with chocolate icing.

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

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

  4. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

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

Chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and body of the cream filling as it melts into the milk.
Egg yolk
Thickens the warm chocolate mixture into a rich, spreadable cream as it sets on cooling.
Milk
Makes up the liquid base of the filling, carrying the melted chocolate and sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and dissolves into the warm milk to make it smooth.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk off the heat. Egg yolk thickens when heated but can scramble if it meets very hot liquid directly. Removing the pan from heat before mixing in the yolk lets it thicken gently into a smooth cream.

“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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