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Dessert

Chocolate Layer Cake

A chocolate cake with a chocolate filling between layers.

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

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Beat the eggs well and stir them into the mixture.

  3. Sift together the flour and corn starch, then add to the batter and mix well.

  4. Pour the batter into jelly tins and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

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

  2. Once cooled, add the egg yolks and rich milk mixed with the corn starch, sweeten to taste, and boil until thick.

Assemble

  1. Spread the filling between the layers and on top of the cake.

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
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter bind and set in the oven.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake's shape as it bakes.
Corn starch
Softens the flour's gluten, giving a finer, more tender crumb and thickens the filling.
Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as it boils and add richness and smoothness.
Chocolate
Provides the main flavour and body of the filling.

The step that matters

Boiling the filling until thick. The filling must be stirred constantly while boiling so it does not scorch, and egg yolks can curdle if overheated. Cooking until thick lets the starch and yolks set the filling properly.

“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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