Name: Devils Food Cake
Ingredients: ½ cup milk; ½ cup chocolate; 2-3 cup sugar; 2 eggs (yolks only); ½ cup butter; 2 cups flour; 1 teaspoon baking soda; ½ teaspoon baking powder; ½ cup milk

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Devils Food Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

Boil the milk, chocolate, and ½ cup sugar together, then cool.
In a bowl, mix the cooled mixture with the remaining sugar, egg yolks, butter, flour, baking soda, and baking powder.
Add the additional ½ cup milk and mix well.

Bake and assemble

Bake in layers.
Put whipped cream between the layers.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,404 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,128 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs: Egg yolks add richness and help bind the batter.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic chocolate mixture to make the cake rise and darken.
Butter: Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Chocolate: Gives the cake its deep chocolate flavor and dark color.

“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.