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Dessert

Cocoa Cake

A moist chocolate cake with almonds, baked in layers and frosted with chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Cocoa 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 in a mixing bowl.

  2. Gradually add the sugar and mix until well combined.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Stir in the cocoa, cinnamon, cloves, and milk.

  5. In a separate bowl, mix the flour and baking powder, then add to the wet ingredients.

  6. Fold in the chopped almonds.

Bake and assemble

  1. Pour the batter into layer cake pans.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

  3. Layer with Chocolate Frosting 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Creams with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, aerated batter when creamed.
Eggs
Add structure and moisture, binding the batter as the cake sets in the oven.
Cocoa
Provides chocolate flavor and deep color to the cake.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs one at a time. Beating each egg in fully before the next keeps the emulsion stable. Adding them too fast can cause the batter to curdle or separate, leading to a coarser, uneven crumb.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, cinnamon, clove, milk, flour):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, cinnamon, clove, milk, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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