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Dessert

Devil's Food Loaf Cake

A chocolate loaf cake made with butter, eggs, sugar, milk, flour, baking powder, chocolate, and vanilla.

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

Devil's Food Loaf 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. Cream the butter in a mixing bowl.

  2. Gradually add 1 cup of sugar and mix well.

  3. Beat the yolks of 4 eggs until light, then add the remaining 1 cup of sugar and mix.

  4. Combine the egg mixture with the butter and sugar mixture.

  5. Alternately add 1 cup of milk and the flour sifted with 4 teaspoons of baking powder.

  6. Melt the chocolate and add it along with the vanilla.

  7. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a sheet pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Yolks add richness and whites add lift and structure to the batter.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a tender crumb.
Sugar
Creaming with butter helps aerate the batter and adds sweetness.
Flour
Its proteins set into the cake's structure as the batter bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the cake rise in the oven.
Bitter chocolate
Adds deep chocolate flavour and a dark colour to the crumb.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air whipped into the egg whites, so the batter stays light and rises well. Stirring vigorously knocks out the air and leaves a dense cake.

“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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