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Dessert

Gem Cakes

A chocolate cake made with grated chocolate, butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, salt, water, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Gem Cakes

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

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

  2. Dissolve the grated chocolate in boiling water.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the eggs and mix well.

  3. Stir in the dissolved chocolate.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, alternating with the water.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into gem pans.

  2. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + chocolatetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,543 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 cakes together as they bake.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cakes and helps create a tender, browned crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cakes rise and become light.
Grated chocolate
Adds chocolate flavour and color to the batter.

The step that matters

Alternating dry ingredients with water. Adding the dry ingredients gradually and alternating with water keeps the batter smooth and well emulsified. Overmixing after the flour goes in can develop gluten and make the cakes tough.

“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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