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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake made with sugar, butter, eggs, milk, flour, baking soda, vanilla, and a chocolate mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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.

Make the chocolate mixture

  1. Combine 1 cup sugar, ½ cup chocolate, egg yolk, and a little water in a saucepan.

  2. Cook the mixture until it reaches a jelly‑like consistency.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together 1 cup sugar and ½ cup butter in a mixing bowl.

  2. Add 2 eggs, ½ cup milk, 1 teaspoon baking soda, and 1 teaspoon vanilla to the mixture.

  3. Incorporate the cooled chocolate mixture into the batter.

  4. Fold in 2 cups of flour until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps browning and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Cool the chocolate mixture before adding it to the batter. If the chocolate mixture is still hot when it goes into the creamed batter, it can melt the butter and disrupt the emulsion, leading to a greasy or uneven texture. Letting it cool first keeps the batter stable.

“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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