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Dessert

Brown Cake

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Brown Cake

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 ↓

Brown 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 sauce

  1. Combine grated chocolate, milk, sugar, egg, and vanilla in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the mixture until smooth.

  3. Let the chocolate sauce cool.

Make the batter

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

  2. Add eggs and milk, mixing well.

  3. Gradually add flour and baking soda to the mixture.

  4. Stir in the cooled chocolate sauce.

  5. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Use thin icing between the layers.

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. 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. Milk + buttertop 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
Forms the cake's main structure as its proteins set during baking.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter bind and set.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the cake tender and rich in flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake, adds moisture, and helps the crust brown.
Baking soda
Produces gas that helps the batter rise in the oven.
Grated chocolate
Gives the cake its chocolate flavor and brown color.

The step that matters

Gradually add the flour and baking soda. Adding flour in portions and mixing only until combined keeps gluten from overdeveloping, which would make the cake tough. Too much mixing after the flour goes in can also toughen the crumb.

“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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