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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake with a frosting of egg whites, sugar, grated chocolate, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the cake

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

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

  3. Add the sweet milk and mix well.

  4. Gradually add the flour and baking powder, mixing until smooth.

  5. In a separate bowl, beat the whole eggs and yolks, then fold into the batter.

  6. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 30-35 minutes.

Make and finish the frosting

  1. For the frosting, beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add sugar.

  2. Fold in the grated chocolate and vanilla.

  3. Spread the frosting over the cooled cake.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. 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 the sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender texture and rich flavor.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes airy.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a soft, fine crumb when creamed with butter.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks to give the frosting a light, airy body.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped to stiff peaks without any trace of fat or yolk, since fat stops them from holding air. Underwhipped or greasy whites produce a runny frosting that will not hold its shape.

“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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