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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A layered chocolate cake with a thick chocolate syrup icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Keokuk (Iowa). Westminster Presbyterian church · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cake layers

  1. Combine one cup butter, two cups sugar, the whites of eight eggs, three cups flour, one cup milk, and two teaspoonfuls baking powder.

  2. Bake the cake in layers.

Make the icing and assemble

  1. For the icing, take three cakes of prepared chocolate, one and a half cups sugar, and one and a half cups water.

  2. Grate the chocolate into the sugar and water, and boil to a thick syrup.

  3. Spread the syrup between the layers.

Make the yeast dough

  1. Combine two and a half pounds flour, one and a quarter pounds butter, three eggs, half pound white sugar, half pound currants, same amount of citron, two tablespoonfuls yeast, beer poured off, half ounce cinnamon, and enough milk to mix.

  2. Put the flour in the pan, mix the yeast, eggs and milk with it.

  3. Melt the butter, then work it into the mixture.

  4. Roll half the dough out after cutting the citron into thin pieces.

  5. Mix the cinnamon, white sugar and currants with the dough.

  6. Spread half of the quantity over the dough, cut into three parts, and roll over and over.

  7. Set the dough on end in a stone dish well greased.

  8. When the three parts are in, set them to rise.

  9. When very light, put in the oven to bake for half an hour.

  10. While baking, boil one pound and a half of brown sugar until it becomes a thick syrup.

  11. At intervals of ten minutes, pour the syrup over the cake with a spoon.

  12. Bake in a hot oven with a quick fire, and try it with a broom straw.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

1056Calories
30 gProtein
35 gFat
155 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 9 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Chocolate1 oz (28g) semisweet155
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
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 Keokuk (Iowa). Westminster Presbyterian church. 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cinnamon + chocolatetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,808 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together.
Baking powder
Releases gas that makes the cake rise and turn light.
Eggs
Add structure and help bind and lift the batter.
Yeast
Ferments the dough so it rises and becomes light.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until very light. Yeast dough needs enough time for the yeast to produce gas and expand the dough. Underproofed dough stays dense, while the bake sets the structure once it has risen.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, milk, cinnamon, 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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