Name: Chocolate Ice Cream Cake
Ingredients: 1 cup butter; 2 cups sugar; 2 eggs; 1 egg yolk; 2 ½ cups milk; 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 1 tablespoon vanilla extract; ½ lb. bitter chocolate, grated

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 ↓

Chocolate Ice Cream Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

Cream butter with 1 cup sugar.
Add 2 whole eggs and 1 ¼ cups milk.
Sift flour and add it with baking powder.
Add 1 tablespoon vanilla extract.

Make the chocolate filling

In a saucepan, combine ¼ lb grated chocolate, ½ cup milk, 1 cup sugar, and yolk of 1 egg.
Boil mixture until thick, then pour into batter and mix well.

Bake and assemble

Bake in 3 layers.
Assemble layers with boiled icing or whipped cream and chill the top.

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.

Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,187 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,020 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 trap air and give the cake a tender crumb.
Eggs: Add structure and richness, binding the batter as it sets in the oven.
All-purpose flour: Forms the main structure of the cake as its starch sets during baking.
Baking powder: Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Bitter chocolate: Gives the cake its chocolate flavor and deep color.
Milk: Adds moisture so the batter bakes up soft and evenly textured.

The step that matters

Boil the chocolate mixture until thick. Cooking the chocolate, sugar, milk and egg yolk thickens them through heat, so the mixture sets properly. Undercooked, it stays runny and can thin the batter when poured in.

“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.

Chocolate Cream171 recipes

Vanilla Ice Cream108 recipes

Chocolate Cookies76 recipes

Chocolate Fudge55 recipes

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Chocolate Ice Cream Cake