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Dessert

Caramel Cake-a New Recipe

A moist cake made with sugar, milk, flour, butter, cream of tartar, and grated chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Caramel Cake-a New Recipe

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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a mixing bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the milk and mix well.

  3. In another bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until smooth.

  5. Fold in the grated chocolate.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake 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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda, helping the cake rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps brown its surface while tenderizing the crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and creaming traps air that aids rising.
Milk
Provides liquid that hydrates the flour and gives the batter its moisture.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding flour in portions and stirring until just smooth keeps the batter from over-developing gluten, which would make the cake tough and dense.

“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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