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Dessert

Fudge Cake

A chocolate cake topped with a chocolate fudge sauce and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Fudge 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 cake batter

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

  4. Stir in the milk, baking powder, and sifted flour.

  5. Add the melted chocolate and vanilla. Mix well.

  6. Pour the batter into a shallow pan.

Bake and make the fudge

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

  2. For the fudge, combine sugar, milk, butter, and grated chocolate in a granite pan over heat.

  3. Bring to a boil, stirring a little at first.

  4. Cook without stirring until it forms a soft ball in cold water.

  5. Remove from heat.

  6. Beat until creamy.

  7. Just before it thickens, add the chopped nuts and vanilla.

  8. Pour over the cake quickly.

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. Vanilla + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,730 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 the cake a tender crumb.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter; whipped whites add lift and a light structure.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once its proteins set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises in the oven.
Chocolate
Adds flavor and richness to the cake, and sets the fudge topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, when cooked, forms the fudge's smooth texture.

The step that matters

Beat the fudge until creamy, adding nuts just before it thickens. Sugar syrup cooled and agitated forms fine crystals, giving a creamy texture. If it is beaten too late it sets hard, and the nuts must go in before that point so they are evenly distributed.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Hazelnutfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, milk, flour, chocolate, 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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