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Dessert

May Jurena

Mocha cake with butter, sugar, yolk, milk, salt, vanilla, flour, baking powder, chocolate, and beaten egg white, baked in two layers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Paidar, Marie, Mrs., [from old catalog] comp · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 81,283 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

May Jurena

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream one heaping tablespoon of butter with three-quarters cup of sugar.

  2. Add one yolk and cream again.

  3. Add three-quarters cup of milk, quarter teaspoon salt, and half a teaspoon vanilla.

  4. Add one cup of flour, sifted with one teaspoon baking powder, three times.

  5. Melt two squares of chocolate and mix well together.

  6. Fold in the beaten white of an egg.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in two layers.

  2. Use chocolate filling.

By Paidar, Marie, Mrs., [from old catalog] comp. 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely 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
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep the crumb soft and moist.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and fat, helping the batter bind and set.
Egg white (in the method)
Beaten and folded in, it traps air that lightens the cake.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the cake to rise.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg white. Beaten whites hold air that makes the cake light. Folding gently keeps that air in, while stirring vigorously deflates the batter and leaves a denser cake.

“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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