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Dessert

Cocoa Cake

A chocolate cake with a cocoa frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Cocoa Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl. Add the beaten egg yolks and mix well.

  2. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and cocoa.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  4. Alternate adding the flour mixture and milk to the egg mixture, then mix well.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites and the lemon or vanilla extract.

Bake and frost

  1. Pour the batter into a shallow pan.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 minutes.

  3. Mix the cocoa with powdered sugar. Add lemon juice and boiling water until it forms a paste.

  4. Spread the frosting on the hot cake immediately.

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. Cocoa + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the batter and help the cake rise.
Egg yolks
Add richness, moisture, and emulsifying fat to the batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven, helping the cake rise and become light.
Cocoa
Gives the cake its chocolate flavour and dark colour.

The step that matters

Spread the frosting on the hot cake immediately. Warm cake is soft and absorbs the frosting, so spreading it while hot gives a smooth, even coat that sets as the cake cools. Waiting can cause the frosting to stiffen unevenly and tear the surface.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, flour, milk, lemon):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Milletfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, flour, milk, lemon. 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.

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