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Dessert

Deviled Cake

A chocolate cake made with grated chocolate, sugar, milk, eggs, butter, flour, baking soda, vanilla, and boiled frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Deviled 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 chocolate filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine grated chocolate, sugar, sweet milk, and egg yolk. Cook over medium heat until thickened.

Make the batter

  1. In a mixing bowl, cream together sugar, eggs, butter, and sweet milk.

  2. Add baking soda and flour to the mixture, then stir in the boiled chocolate mixture and vanilla extract.

Bake and assemble

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

  2. Once cooled, layer the cakes and frost with boiled 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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla 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
Bind the batter and help set the cake's structure as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the framework that holds the cake together.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb through its fat.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep it tender and moist.
Grated chocolate
Adds deep chocolate flavor and color to the cake.

The step that matters

Cook the chocolate mixture over medium heat until thickened. Egg yolk thickens the mixture as it heats, but too much heat can overcook the protein and make it grainy or scrambled. Watching it closely keeps the filling smooth before it goes into the batter.

“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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