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Dessert

Chocolate Cream Cake

A chocolate cake with a chocolate cream filling and lemon icing.

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 Cream 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 chocolate cream

  1. Combine ¾ cup grated chocolate, ½ cup sweet milk, ⅔ cup dark brown sugar, and the yolk of 1 egg in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the mixture until thickened like custard.

  3. Set the chocolate mixture aside to cool.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together 1 cup dark brown sugar and ½ cup butter until light and fluffy.

  2. Add 2 cups sifted flour, ½ cup sweet milk, 2 eggs, and a splash of vanilla extract.

  3. Mix the batter until well combined.

  4. Fold in the cooled chocolate cream mixture and 1 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in a little warm water.

  5. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

Bake and ice

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Mix the juice of 1 lemon with powdered sugar until it reaches a stiff consistency for the 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. Milk + buttertop 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
Bind the batter and add richness and structure as the cake sets.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds tenderness and fat for a soft crumb.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once its proteins set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic batter to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Dark brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture and a molasses flavor that deepens the chocolate.
Grated chocolate
Gives the cake its chocolate flavor and, cooked into custard, a rich dark color.

The step that matters

Cooling the chocolate cream before folding. If the custard is still hot, it can melt the butter in the creamed batter and deflate the air bubbles, leading to a dense, greasy cake. Letting it cool keeps the batter's structure intact.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chocolate, milk, sugar, egg, butter, flour, vanilla):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, milk, sugar, egg, butter, flour, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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