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Dessert

Caramel Cake

A cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, chocolate, and topped with caramel icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Caramel 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 and sugar together until light and fluffy.

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

  3. Stir in the sweet milk and vanilla.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.

  5. Gradually add the dry mixture to the wet mixture.

  6. Melt the chocolate with the milk.

  7. Add the melted chocolate to the batter.

  8. Beat the egg whites until very light.

  9. Fold the beaten egg whites into the batter.

Bake and ice

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

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

  3. For the icing, combine brown sugar, cream, and butter in a saucepan.

  4. Boil until it forms a soft ball when tested in cold water.

  5. Spread the icing over the cooled cake.

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. Chocolate + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  5. Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites add lift and a light, airy crumb; yolks add richness and structure.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the cake to rise and become tender.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add fat for a tender texture.
Brown sugar
Adds moisture and deep caramel flavor to the icing and helps it set soft.
Chocolate
Adds flavor and color to the batter.

The step that matters

Boiling the icing to soft ball stage. Sugar syrup must reach the right temperature to set correctly; too little boiling leaves the icing runny, while too much makes it hard and grainy as it cools.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Hazelnutfits about as well
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, milk, flour, chocolate, cream. 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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