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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake with butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, and icing made from sugar, milk, butter, and vanilla.

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 batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the melted chocolate mixed with hot water.

  3. Incorporate the 2 well-beaten eggs.

  4. Beat the mixture for five minutes.

  5. Add the milk.

  6. Add the sifted flour mixed with baking powder.

  7. Beat well until the batter is very light.

Bake

  1. Bake in a loaf pan at 350°F (175°C).

Make the icing and finish

  1. Boil 1 cup sugar, ½ cup milk, and a piece of butter for 5 minutes.

  2. Stir until it creams.

  3. Spread the icing on the cake.

  4. Cover with melted chocolate mixed with a piece of butter the size of an egg and flavored with vanilla.

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and moisture as they set in the oven.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep the crumb tender and moist.
Melted chocolate
Adds deep chocolate flavor and richness to the batter and topping.

The step that matters

Beat the batter until very light. Creaming and beating trap air in the batter, and the baking powder expands those bubbles in the oven. Under-beating leaves a dense, heavy cake.

“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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