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Dessert

Small Chocolate Cakes

A small chocolate cake made with butter, sugar, water, flour, salt, baking powder, eggs, melted chocolate, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Small Chocolate 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).

Mix the batter

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

  2. Add the water, flour, salt, baking powder, eggs, melted chocolate, and vanilla. Mix well.

  3. Pour the batter into muffin tins.

Bake

  1. 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. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 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. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 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
Creams with sugar to add richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the muffins and helps the creamed butter hold air.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the muffins together as they bake.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the muffins rise and become light.
Melted chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and some moisture and fat to the batter.

The step that matters

Checking doneness with a toothpick. Baking soda and powder release gas that lifts the batter, and the proteins in eggs and flour set as the muffins bake. Removing them before the centre has set can leave them sunken or gummy, while overbaking dries them out.

“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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