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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake with butter, sour milk, baking soda, flour, sugar, and a frosting of confectioners' sugar, thick cream, vanilla, and melted chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

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 cake

  1. In a bowl, combine 2 sections of chocolate with 1 cup of boiling water.

  2. Add 1 egg, ½ cup melted butter, ½ cup sour milk mixed with 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 cup flour, and 1 cup sugar. Mix well.

  3. Pour the batter into 2 shallow square tins and bake at 350°F (175°C) until done.

Frost and finish

  1. For the frosting, mix 1 pound of confectioners' sugar with ½ cup thick cream until it forms a paste. Add vanilla extract to taste.

  2. Once the cake is cold, spread the frosting thickly on top.

  3. Melt 2 sections of chocolate with small pieces of butter, then spread this thin layer over the frosting once it has set.

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

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping the crumb set as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tenderness to the crumb.
Melted butter
Adds fat for moisture, tenderness and rich flavour.
Confectioners' sugar
Dissolves into the cream to form a smooth, thick frosting.

The step that matters

Spread the frosting only once the cake is cold. Frosting spread on a warm cake melts and slides off, and the cake's crumb can break apart under the spreading knife. Cooling lets the structure firm up first.

“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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