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Dessert

Dark Chocolate Layer Cake

A chocolate cake made with butter, sour milk, baking soda, flour, eggs, vanilla, and melted chocolate, baked in three pans.

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 ↓

Dark Chocolate Layer 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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the sour milk and baking soda, mixing well.

  4. Stir in the flour and the dissolved chocolate mixture.

  5. Beat in the eggs and vanilla until smooth.

Bake and finish

  1. Divide the batter evenly into three greased cake pans.

  2. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  3. Let cool before frosting with white boiled 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. 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

Sugar
Sweetens the batter and, creamed with butter, helps give the cake a tender crumb.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and creaming it with sugar traps air that helps the cake rise.
Sour milk
Provides acidity that reacts with baking soda to lift the batter and adds moisture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release gas, leavening the cake.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Bitter chocolate
Adds deep chocolate flavor and color to the batter.
Eggs
Add structure and moisture, and help bind the batter as it sets.

The step that matters

Beat in the eggs and vanilla until smooth. Mixing the batter just until smooth avoids overworking the flour, which would make the cake tough. Eggs added at room temperature blend more evenly into the creamed butter and sugar.

“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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