Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A sweet baked cake made with sugar, butter, sour milk, eggs, flour, baking soda, grated chocolate, sweet milk, vanilla, and frosted with confectioner's sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

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. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the sour milk, eggs, and flour, mixing well.

Make the chocolate filling

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the grated chocolate with sweet milk and the yolk of one egg.

  2. Sweeten the chocolate mixture to taste and add vanilla.

  3. Cook the chocolate mixture until it thickens, then cool.

  4. Combine the cooled chocolate mixture with the cake batter.

Bake and frost

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

  2. Once baked, frost with confectioner's sugar.

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 add fat and tenderness to the crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness to the batter and bind it together.
Flour
Provides the main structure of the cake once baked.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tenderness to the crumb.
Grated chocolate
Gives the cake its chocolate flavour and deep colour.

The step that matters

Cooking the chocolate mixture until it thickens. If the chocolate mixture is undercooked, the egg yolk will not set and it may stay runny and thin the batter. Cooking it until thick, then cooling it, keeps the batter consistent before it is combined and baked.

“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.

More chocolate cake recipes

Filling 18French 14Marbled 13Black 11Dark 10Marble 7 See all 565 →

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipes