Name: Cocoa Cake
Ingredients: one-half cup butter; 1 cup sugar; 6 tablespoons baker's cocoa; 1 tablespoon vanilla; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 2 cups pastry flour; a pinch of salt; 3 eggs; salt

Why it works: Cocoa and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 357 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Cocoa Cake

Ingredients

Directions

One-half cup butter, 1 cup sugar, 3 eggs (whites beaten sep- arately), 6 tablespoons Baker's Cocoa, y. CUP milk, 1 tablespoon vanilla, 2 teaspoons baking powder, \½ cups bread flour; or, 2 cups pastry flour ; a pinch of salt. Add whites of eggs last, well beaten. Mrs. Williams, Waukegan, III.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

851Calories

21 gProtein

27 gFat

126 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Chocolate	1 oz (28g) semisweet	155
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Vanilla	1 tsp extract (4ml)	12
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Pastry	not in our table	0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By North End Club (Chicago, Ill.). 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. See the original page.

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.

Cocoa + vanillatop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together357 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Vanilla + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,241 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,050 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, vanilla, flour, egg):

Almondfits better
Chestnutfits better
Macadamia nutfits better
Cocoathe original

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