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Dessert

Chocolate Ice Cream Cake

A chocolate cake layered with a boiled sugar syrup and whipped egg white filling, topped with vanilla flavor.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Ice Cream 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 cake

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the flour and baking powder.

  4. Add melted chocolate until the desired color is achieved.

  5. Bake in layers at 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling and assemble

  1. For the filling, boil the sugar and water until it forms a candy when dropped in cold water.

  2. Pour the boiling syrup into the beaten egg whites and beat until firm.

  3. Flavor with vanilla and spread between the layers and on top.

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. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Butter
Adds fat that makes the cake tender and rich.
Eggs
Provide structure and help bind the batter as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the layers rise.
Egg whites
Whipped with hot syrup to create a light, stable filling.

The step that matters

Pour the boiling syrup into the beaten egg whites. The syrup must be hot enough to cook the whites slightly as it is beaten in, which stabilizes the foam. Pouring it in slowly while beating keeps the mixture from deflating and helps it set firm.

“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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