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Dessert

Chocolate Layer Cake

A chocolate layer cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, corn starch, chocolate, water, egg yolks, and milk, baked in jelly tins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Chocolate Layer Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the cake batter

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Beat the eggs well and stir them in.

  3. Add the flour and Kingsford's Corn Starch, sifted together, and mix well.

Bake and make the filling

  1. Bake in jelly tins at 350°F (175°C).

  2. For the filling, dissolve the chocolate in a little water and boil while stirring constantly.

  3. When cold, add the egg yolks and rich milk, mixing in the Kingsford's Corn Starch.

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. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, creating a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and hold moisture when creamed with butter.
Eggs
Provide structure and binding, helping the cake set as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
Chocolate
Gives the cake and filling their chocolate flavour and richness.
Corn starch
Thickens the mixture and gives a softer, more tender texture.

The step that matters

Boiling the chocolate while stirring constantly. Chocolate dissolved in liquid can scorch or seize if left unstirred, leaving a grainy or burnt-tasting filling. Constant stirring keeps the heat even so the chocolate melts smoothly.

“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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