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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A moist chocolate cake with a chocolate egg white icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the cake

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

  2. In a bowl, mix 1½ cups sugar, 1 cup milk, 2 cups flour, 2 tablespoons butter, 1 egg, and 2 teaspoons baking powder until smooth.

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

Make the icing and assemble

  1. For the icing, beat 2 egg whites until stiff, then gradually add 1 cup sugar and ½ cup melted chocolate.

  2. Spread the icing between the layers of the cooled 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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 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. Milk + chocolatetop 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).

Flour and butter 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
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that gives the icing its light, airy texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it heats, making the cake batter rise and turn light.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavor in the cake.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a smooth batter with the flour.
Chocolate
Provides chocolate flavor and richness to the icing.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be beaten until stiff so they trap air and hold their shape. Under-beaten whites make a runny icing, while over-beaten whites turn grainy and collapse.

“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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