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Dessert

Cocoa Cake

A moist cake made with cocoa powder, eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, vanilla, and folded egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Add cocoa powder, flour, baking powder, and vanilla extract; mix well.

  3. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites until combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Cocoa powder + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cocoa powder + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,244 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Sugar + cocoa powdertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Egg yolks
Add richness and moisture, and help emulsify the batter with the sugar.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they trap air to give the cake lift and a light crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the cake rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps beat air into the yolks for a light texture.
Cocoa powder
Gives the cake its chocolate flavour and a darker colour.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stirring vigorously knocks out the air whipped into the whites, which leads to a dense cake. Fold gently with a spatula so the batter keeps its lift before it goes into the oven.

“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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