Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake with a chocolate filling and frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter 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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. Prepare the filling by combining 1 cup chocolate, ½ cup milk, 1 cup sugar, and 1 egg yolk. Let it cool.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together 2 cups brown sugar and 1 cup butter.

  2. Add 1 cup milk and 6 eggs to the mixture, then mix well.

  3. Gradually add 1½ cups flour and 1 teaspoon baking powder until the batter is stiff.

  4. Set aside the whites of 3 eggs for frosting.

Bake and frost

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Once cooled, frost the cake with chocolate frosting.

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.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake sets in the oven.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb once baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the batter rises and turns light.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness, and carries flavor through the crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown and stay soft.
Chocolate
Gives the cake its main chocolate flavor and deep color.

The step that matters

Gradually add the flour and baking powder until the batter is stiff. Adding flour gradually keeps the batter smooth so lumps do not form. Overmixing once flour is in develops gluten, which can make the cake tough and dense rather than tender.

“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 →

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipesChocolate Drop CookiesChocolate Drop Cookies50 recipes