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Dessert

Chocolate Loaf

A sweet loaf cake made with sugar, butter, eggs, chocolate, milk, flour, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Chocolate Loaf

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 ↓

Chocolate Loaf

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

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

  3. In a bowl, combine the chocolate and ½ cup sugar with the boiling milk.

  4. Add this mixture to the cake mixture.

  5. Stir in the milk.

Add the flour

  1. Sift together the flour and baking powder.

  2. Mix into the batter.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour into a loaf pan.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until done.

  3. Let cool before icing.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + flourtop 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. Chocolate + milktop 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).

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the loaf its structure.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the loaf rises and becomes light.
Chocolate
Gives the loaf its chocolate flavor and dark color.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crumb brown and stay tender.

The step that matters

Let cool before icing. Icing applied to a hot loaf melts and soaks in rather than setting on the surface. Cooling lets the crumb firm up so the icing stays in place.

“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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