Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Devil 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
Dissolve the brown sugar and chocolate in a saucepan over low heat.
In a bowl, mix together the sugar, eggs, and butter until well combined.
Add the dissolved mixture to the bowl, then stir in the thick milk, baking soda, and flour until smooth.
Bake and make the icing
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.
For the Sea Foam Icing, boil ½ cup of white sugar with ¼ cup of water slowly until it forms a soft ball in cold water.
Beat the whites of 2 eggs until stiff, then slowly pour the hot sugar mixture over the egg whites while beating continuously until cool and stiff.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Chocolate + cocoatop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together165 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-ethyl-3,6-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).
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Cocoa + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together643 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,404 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic chocolate and milk to produce gas that lifts the cake.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and a richer crumb.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown and stay soft.
The step that matters
Beating the hot sugar into the egg whites. Pouring the syrup in slowly while beating keeps it from cooking the whites into lumps and lets the foam hold air, giving a stiff, smooth icing.
Swap the cocoa
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, chocolate, milk, egg, butter, flour):
- Almondfits better
- Hazelnutfits better
- Pecansfits about as well
- Cocoathe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, chocolate, milk, egg, butter, 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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