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Dessert

Chocolate Drop Cakes

Chocolate drop cakes are small, chocolate‑flavored cakes made with flour, almonds, butter, sugar, eggs, spices, and melted chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Chocolate Drop Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

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

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Stir in the melted chocolate, cloves, cinnamon, and vanilla.

  5. Gradually add the flour, baking powder, and chopped almonds, mixing until combined.

Bake

  1. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto buttered parchment paper on baking sheets.

  2. Bake for 6 to 8 minutes until set.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Almond + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air, giving the cakes a tender, light crumb and rich flavour.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cakes rise and lighten.
Baker's chocolate
Adds deep chocolate flavour and richness to the batter.
Almonds
Add texture and a nutty flavour, with some fat contributing to moistness.

The step that matters

Bake for 6 to 8 minutes until set. Small drops bake quickly, and overbaking dries them out and makes them firm, while underbaking leaves the centre gummy because the eggs and flour have not set.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, almond, butter, egg, cinnamon, chocolate, sugar. 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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