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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake with a sugar glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the melted chocolate and sweet milk.

  3. Mix in the egg yolks.

  4. Sift the baking powder with the flour.

  5. Add the sifted mixture alternately with the beaten egg whites.

  6. Bake in two layers at 350°F (175°C).

Make the icing

  1. Boil the granulated sugar and boiling water until it forms a hair-like thread.

  2. Pour the syrup over the beaten egg whites and beat until thick.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Eggs
Egg whites trap air for lift, while yolks add richness and moisture.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the cake a tender texture and rich flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep the crumb tender and moist.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.
Chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor, richness, and a deep color to the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold the air that lifts the cake. Adding the sifted mixture alternately and mixing gently keeps that air from deflating, so the layers rise evenly and stay light.

“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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