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Dessert

Chocolate Layer Cake

A chocolate cake made with sugar, butter, eggs, chocolate, baking soda, sour milk, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Chocolate Layer 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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the eggs and mix well.

  4. Stir in the dissolved chocolate and boiling water.

  5. In a separate bowl, combine the baking soda and sour milk, then add to the mixture.

  6. Gradually add the flour, mixing until smooth.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Use frosting or chocolate filling between layers if desired.

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. 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

Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender, moist crumb when creamed with butter.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Eggs
Add structure and moisture, helping bind the batter.
Chocolate
Gives the cake its chocolate flavor and deep color.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that lifts the cake.
Sour milk
Provides acidity to activate the baking soda and adds tenderness.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.

The step that matters

Combining the baking soda with the sour milk. Baking soda needs an acid to release carbon dioxide. Mixing it with the sour milk just before the flour and baking lets the gas form and be trapped in the batter, so the cake rises properly rather than going flat.

“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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