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Dessert

Black Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake made with butter, flour, sugar, eggs, vanilla, milk, baking powder, and melted chocolate, topped with a boiled icing flavored with brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Kaufman, Nettie M · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Black Chocolate Cake

Why it works: Vanilla and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Black Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and sugar to a cream.

  2. Add the beaten yolks.

  3. Add the milk and flour, alternately.

  4. Add 1 teaspoon baking powder.

Add the chocolate and bake

  1. Take 2 squares of Baker's chocolate, dissolve in 6 tablespoons of boiling water, and stir this into the mixture while hot.

  2. Add whites of 3 eggs, beaten stiff, and one teaspoon vanilla.

  3. Bake in layers in a very slow oven.

Make the boiled icing

  1. For the boiled icing, take 1 cup granulated sugar and 1 1/3 cup hot water, and boil until it strings.

  2. Then pour boiled sugar and water slowly into beaten white of 1 egg.

  3. Beat briskly.

  4. Flavor with brandy.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

749Calories
21 gProtein
15 gFat
126 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
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Vanilla1 tsp extract (4ml)12
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 Kaufman, Nettie M. 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Vanilla + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter, and beaten whites add lift and an airy crumb.
Baker's chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and dark color of the cake.
Baking powder
Releases gas as the batter bakes, helping the cake rise.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and, boiled with water, forms the syrup for the icing.

The step that matters

Pour the boiled syrup slowly into the beaten egg white. Hot syrup cooks the egg white proteins as it is poured in. Pouring slowly while beating lets the foam set smooth and stable instead of scrambling or collapsing.

“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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