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Dessert

Fudge Cake

A chocolate and walnut cake baked in three layers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Fudge Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the milk.

  3. Stir in the flour mixed with baking powder.

  4. Stir in the dissolved chocolate.

  5. Add the beaten eggs last.

Bake

  1. Bake in three layers.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Chocolate + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Flour
Builds the cake's structure as its proteins set during baking.
Eggs
Add structure, richness, and help bind the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay moist.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the batter as it bakes.
Chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and a deeper color to the cake.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour mixed with baking powder.. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form. Stirring only until combined keeps the crumb tender, while overmixing makes it tough. Baking powder should be evenly distributed so the cake rises uniformly.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Hazelnutfits about as well
  3. Pecansfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, chocolate, milk, egg. 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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