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Black Chocolate Cake

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Black Chocolate Cake

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 ↓

Black 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.

  1. In a double boiler, combine the egg yolk, cold water, sugar, and chocolate. Heat until thickened.

  2. Stir in the vanilla and set aside.

  3. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  4. Add the beaten eggs, sour milk, and baking soda. Mix well.

  5. Gradually add the flour and stir until combined.

  6. Fold in the chocolate mixture and nuts if using.

  7. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.

  8. For the icing, cook the egg, sugar, chocolate, butter, and cream over hot water until thick.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Nuts + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together284 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Chocolate + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Chocolate + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

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

Swap the nuts

The recipe marks nuts as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, chocolate, butter, milk, flour, walnut):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Macadamia nutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, chocolate, butter, milk, flour, walnut. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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