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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A layered chocolate cake with a chocolate filling and plain white icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cocoa and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 357 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

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

  2. Add the egg yolks, cocoa, water, and flour, mixing well.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and gently fold them into the batter.

  4. Add vanilla and mix in the baking powder just before placing in the oven.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, combine water, sugar, cornstarch, and cocoa in a saucepan.

  2. Cook until thickened, then flavor with vanilla and let cool.

Assemble

  1. Layer the filling between the cake layers and ice the top with plain white 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. Cocoa + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give a tender crumb, with fat adding richness.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks to lighten the batter and give the cake structure as it sets.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Royal baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to make the cake rise.
Cocoa
Adds chocolate flavor and deep color to the batter and filling.
Cornstarch
Thickens the filling as it cooks so it holds between the layers.

The step that matters

Add the baking powder just before baking. Baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it gets wet and is activated by heat. Mixing it in right before the oven keeps the bubbles from escaping early, so the cake rises well and keeps a light texture.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Macadamia nutfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, 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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Filling 18French 14Marbled 13Black 11Dark 10Marble 7 See all 565 →

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