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Dessert

Chocolate Drop Cakes

A small cake made with sugar, egg, milk, flour, raisins, nuts, melted chocolate, and butter, baked until firm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chocolate Drop Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Gradually add sugar to melted butter.

  2. Add the well-beaten yolk and then the milk.

  3. Sift flour and baking powder together; shake some onto the raisins and nuts.

  4. Slowly add flour to the mixture and beat until smooth.

  5. Fold in melted chocolate, nuts, and raisins.

  6. Gently cut in the stiff egg whites.

Bake

  1. Drop by teaspoon onto a greased pan, 1 inch apart.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until firm to the touch.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Nuts + chocolatetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Raisin + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Egg
The yolk enriches and binds the batter, while the whipped whites lighten its texture.
Pastry flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and tender moisture to the crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas that makes the drops rise and turn light.
Melted chocolate
Adds deep chocolate flavor and moisture throughout the cake.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps give the cake a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Gently cut in the stiff egg whites. Stiff egg whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Vigorous stirring deflates them, leaving a dense, flat result, so fold gently until just combined.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Nutsthe original

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