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Dessert

Chocolate Layer Cake

A chocolate layer cake with butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and a chocolate filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 Layer 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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream together the butter and sugar.

  3. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

  4. Sift the cream of tartar and baking soda into the flour.

  5. Add the flour alternately with the milk to the mixture.

  6. Bake in four or five layers until golden.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, beat the egg whites and powdered sugar together.

  2. In a saucepan, stir the grated chocolate, powdered sugar, and boiling water over heat until smooth and glossy.

  3. Remove from heat and stir into the egg and sugar mixture while hot.

Assemble and finish

  1. Once cool, spread the filling on the top and sides of the cake.

  2. Return the cake to the oven briefly to dry the icing.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Eggs
Provide structure and richness to the batter as it sets in baking.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter.
Cream of tartar
Stabilizes the egg whites and works with baking soda to lighten the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic ingredients to help the cake rise and brown.

The step that matters

Stir the chocolate filling into the egg and sugar mixture while hot. Adding the chocolate mixture too cold or too late can leave lumps or cause it to set unevenly. Keeping it hot and stirring steadily keeps the filling smooth and glossy.

“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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