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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the cake

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the 5 eggs (using only 3 yolks) and sweet milk, mixing well.

  4. Dissolve the cream of tartar and baking soda in the milk, then add to the mixture.

  5. Gradually add the flour, mixing until smooth.

  6. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 30-35 minutes.

Make the frosting and finish

  1. For the frosting, beat the reserved egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gradually add the powdered sugar, grated chocolate, and vanilla, mixing until smooth.

  3. Frost the cake while it is still hot.

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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Eggs
Provide structure and richness, and their yolks add moisture and tenderness to the crumb.
All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the cake its structure as the batter sets.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda, helping the cake rise and stay tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to release gas, leavening the cake and aiding browning.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake, tenderizes the crumb, and helps it brown.

The step that matters

Frost the cake while it is still hot. Frosting a hot cake can melt the frosting and make it slide off or turn runny. Cooling the cake first lets the frosting set and stay in place.

“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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