Name: Fudge Cake
Ingredients: ½ cup melted butter; 2 eggs, well beaten; 3 squares unsweetened chocolate; ½ cup flour; 6 tablespoons cocoa powder; 1 tablespoon vanilla extract; 1 cup sugar; 1 cup chopped nuts

Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Fudge 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.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make and bake the batter

In a mixing bowl, beat together the melted butter, eggs, and unsweetened chocolate.
Add the flour, cocoa powder, vanilla extract, sugar, and chopped nuts, and mix until well combined.
Pour the batter into biscuit pans, spreading it to a thickness of three-fourths inch.
Bake in the preheated oven 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.

Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,020 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Vanilla + nutstop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together638 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Cocoa powder + vanillatop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,189 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Chocolate + nutstop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together440 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Vanilla and sugar 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

Eggs: Bind the batter and help set the cake structure as they cook.
Butter: Adds richness and moisture, giving the cake a tender crumb.
Unsweetened chocolate: Supplies deep chocolate flavour and fat, adding richness to the batter.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps keep it moist and tender.

Swap the nuts

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

Almondfits better
Hazelnutfits better
Chestnutfits better
Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, chocolate, flour, cocoa powder, vanilla, 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.