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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake with chocolate, milk, egg yolk, sugar, butter, sour cream, baking soda, flour, vanilla, topped with chocolate frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 batter

  1. Boil chocolate, milk, and egg yolk together in a saucepan.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in sugar, butter, sour cream, baking soda, flour, and vanilla until well combined.

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

Make the frosting

  1. Melt chocolate for frosting and mix with egg yolk, a little vanilla, and melted butter.

  2. Gradually stir in confectioner's sugar until frosting is spreadable.

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. 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's crumb together as it bakes.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the batter and emulsify the frosting.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and acidity, which tenderizes the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Chocolate
Gives the cake its flavor and deep color.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep it moist and tender.

The step that matters

Stirring in the baking soda with the sour cream. Baking soda needs an acid to react and release gas. Its leavening works only if the batter is mixed evenly and baked promptly, so the cake rises rather than staying flat or dense.

“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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