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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake with a chocolate filling made from water, sugar, corn starch, cocoa, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By United Methodist Church (Grayville, Ill.) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cocoa and chocolate work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 165 recipes. Both carry 2-ethyl-3,6-dimethylpyrazine, which smells roasted, nutty. The science ↓

Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cake batter

  1. Cream one-half cup butter and one and one-half cups sugar.

  2. Add the yolks of three eggs, three tablespoons cocoa, one cup water, and two cups flour.

  3. Add the whites of three eggs that have been beaten for ten minutes.

  4. Flavor with vanilla and mix in two teaspoons Royal Baking Powder just before placing in oven.

  5. Use two squares of chocolate instead of cocoa if preferred.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, combine one cup water, one-half cup sugar, two teaspoons corn starch, two teaspoons cocoa, and vanilla.

  2. Cook the filling.

Assemble and finish

  1. Put the filling between the cake layers and ice the cake with plain white icing.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

839Calories
21 gProtein
27 gFat
125 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
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Chocolate1 oz (28g) semisweet155
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Waternot 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 United Methodist Church (Grayville, 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. Cocoa + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together165 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, 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

Eggs
Whites beaten separately add air and lift, giving the cake a light, open crumb.
Flour
Provides the starch and structure that set the cake's crumb as it bakes.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and tenderness.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, causing the batter to rise in the oven.
Cocoa
Adds chocolate flavor and deep color to the cake and filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender texture when creamed with butter.

The step that matters

Mix in the baking powder just before placing in oven. Baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it is wet and heated, so the batter should go into the oven right after mixing to keep the rise strong.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Hazelnutfits better
  3. Macadamia nutfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, chocolate, sugar, corn, egg. 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.

More chocolate cake recipes

Filling 18French 14Marbled 13Black 11Dark 10Marble 7 See all 565 →

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