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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A rich chocolate cake made with butter, powdered sugar, grated chocolate, milk, eggs, flour, baking powder, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 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 batter

  1. Cream together the butter and powdered sugar.

  2. Dissolve the chocolate in the milk.

  3. Work the chocolate mixture into the creamed butter and sugar.

  4. Add the egg yolks, flour, and baking powder, mixing well.

  5. Lightly fold in the whipped egg whites.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into buttered and lined pans.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 350°F (175°C) for about one hour.

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

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter; whipped whites trap air for a light, risen crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavour.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cake and dissolves easily into the creamed butter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises.
Grated chocolate
Gives the cake its chocolate flavour and adds richness.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Whites hold air that makes the cake light. Stirring them in vigorously knocks out that air, so fold gently and only until no white streaks remain.

“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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