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Dessert

Devil Cake

A chocolate cake made with grated chocolate, brown sugar, milk, eggs, flour, butter, and baking soda.

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 ↓

Devil 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 custard

  1. Mix grated chocolate, brown sugar, sweet milk, egg yolk, and vanilla in a bowl.

  2. Cook the mixture slowly until thickened.

  3. Set aside to cool.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together brown sugar and butter in another bowl.

  2. Add sweet milk, eggs, and flour to the creamed mixture.

  3. Beat until smooth.

  4. Incorporate the cooled custard into the batter.

  5. Dissolve baking soda in warm water and add to the mixture.

  6. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick 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. Flour + buttertop 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

Grated chocolate
Provides chocolate flavor and a rich, dark color to the cake.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the cake set as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a moist, rich texture.
Baking soda
Reacts to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deeper caramel-like flavor.

The step that matters

Cooling the custard before adding it to the batter. Adding warm custard can thin the batter and affect its texture and rise, so the custard should be cooled first as the method directs.

“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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