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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake with a chocolate filling and frosted with whipped egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, mix sugar, flour, butter, eggs, cream of tartar, baking soda, milk, and vanilla until smooth.

  3. Divide the batter into three medium-sized jelly tins.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine grated chocolate, 1 cup milk, cornstarch, egg yolk, and sugar; boil until thick.

  2. Spread the chocolate mixture between the cakes and around the sides, extending it about 1 inch.

Frost

  1. Whip the egg white and use it to frost the top of the 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. Vanilla + chocolatetop 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

Eggs
Provide structure and richness as they set during baking, binding the batter.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake crumb as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the cake tender and moist.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas, helping the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, stabilizing the egg foam and helping the rise.
Grated chocolate
Gives the filling its chocolate flavor and body.

The step that matters

Boil the chocolate filling until thick. Cornstarch and egg yolk thicken the filling only when it reaches a full boil. Undercooked, it stays runny and can soak into the cake layers.

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

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