Name: Chocolate Cake
Ingredients: 1½ squares of chocolate; ½ cup milk (for melting chocolate); 2 eggs (reserve 1 white for frosting); 1 cup sugar; 1 teaspoon baking soda; ½ cup milk (for baking); 1¼ cups all-purpose flour; 1 cup sugar (for frosting); 1 egg white (for frosting)

Why it works: Chocolate and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,404 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. 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

Melt the chocolate in ½ cup of milk.
In a bowl, beat the 2 eggs and add the melted chocolate mixture.
Stir in 1 cup of sugar, 1 teaspoon of baking soda dissolved in ½ cup of milk, and 1¼ cups of flour.

Bake and frost

Pour the batter into a dripping pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) until done.
For the frosting, beat 1 cup of sugar with the reserved egg white until smooth.

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 + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,404 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,128 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Chocolate: Provides the chocolate flavor and dark color of the cake.
Eggs: Add structure and richness to the batter as it sets in the oven.
Baking soda: Reacts with the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
All-purpose flour: Forms the gluten network that gives the cake its structure.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay moist.

“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.