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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake made with sugar, butter, lard, sour milk, cocoa, boiling water, baking soda, flour, baking powder, vanilla, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cocoa and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 357 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the sugar and butter and lard together.

  2. Add the sour milk or buttermilk and mix well.

  3. Dissolve the cocoa in the boiling water and add the baking soda.

  4. Combine the cocoa mixture with the other ingredients.

  5. Sift the flour with the baking powder and add to the mixture.

  6. Add vanilla to taste and the beaten eggs last.

Bake

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until done.

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. Cocoa + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  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. Milk + cocoatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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 richness to the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk or buttermilk to produce gas for rising.
Baking powder
Adds additional leavening so the cake rises in the oven.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's shape as it sets.
Cocoa
Supplies the chocolate flavor and deep color of the cake.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep it moist and tender.

The step that matters

Add the baking soda to the dissolved cocoa, then combine promptly. Baking soda reacts as soon as it meets acidic liquid and begins releasing gas. Mixing it in and getting the batter into the oven without delay helps the cake rise well rather than losing its lift while it waits.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits about as well
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, vanilla, egg. 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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Filling 18French 14Marbled 13Black 11Dark 10Marble 7 See all 565 →

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