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Dessert

Porcupine Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake with almond garnish shaped like a porcupine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By North End Club (Chicago, Ill.) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and cocoa 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 ↓

Porcupine Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat seven yolks and five whites with sugar.

  2. Melt the German sweet chocolate and add to the mixture.

  3. Add the ground almonds.

  4. Add the grated lemon rind and vanilla.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites until stiff.

  6. Bake the batter in a loaf pan for 45 minutes in a moderate oven.

Frost and decorate

  1. Mix one cup sugar, 2 teaspoonfuls cocoa, and 1 teaspoonful vanilla with hot water until the frosting has the right consistency.

  2. Spread the frosting over the cooled cake.

  3. Cut blanched almonds into strips and stick them on top of the cake to represent a porcupine.

  4. Slice and serve with whipped cream.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

306Calories
8 gProtein
14 gFat
34 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Chocolate1 oz (28g) semisweet155
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Vanilla1 tsp extract (4ml)12
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Cakenot in our table0

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.

  1. Vanilla + cocoatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Cocoa + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-ethyl-3,6-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Vanilla and sugar 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

Egg yolks and whites
Beaten eggs give the cake its light, airy structure when folded into the batter.
German sweet chocolate
Melted into the batter, it supplies the chocolate flavour and richness.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and, dissolved in hot water, forms the frosting.
Ground almonds (in the method)
Add body and moisture to the batter, giving a tender, nutty crumb.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites until stiff. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the whites, which is what makes the cake rise and stay light. Overmixing deflates the foam and produces a dense cake.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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

“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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