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Chocolate Cake

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

Directions

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

  2. Add the cocoa, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice, mixing well.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and add them to the mixture.

  4. Stir in the flour and baking powder.

  5. Gradually add the water, mixing until smooth.

  6. Fold in the beaten egg whites last.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Cocoathe original

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

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