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Dessert

Chocolate: Nut Cakl

A chocolate cake with walnuts baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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: Nut Cakl

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Melt the chocolate, then mix the melted chocolate with boiling water and combine it with the cake mixture.

  3. Add the chopped walnuts to the mixture.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into a shallow pan, making it 1½ to 2 inches thick.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until done.

  3. Ice with white icing.

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
Forms the main structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and moisture, and help bind the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to a tender, browned crust.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Baker's chocolate
Provides chocolate flavor and a deep brown color to the cake.

The step that matters

Bake until done. The batter is poured thick, so heat takes longer to reach the center. Underbaking leaves the middle wet and gummy, while the outside may already be overdone. Check that the center is set before removing the cake.

Swap the walnut

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

  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, milk, flour, 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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