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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A small chocolate cake baked in a Yorkshire pudding tin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chocolate Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  4. Mix in the grated chocolate, flour, and baking powder.

  5. Pour the batter into a greased and lined small Yorkshire pudding tin.

  6. Spread the batter flat and bake for 10 to 15 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Turn the cake out onto sugared paper.

  2. Spread the underside with apricot jam and sprinkle with coconut.

  3. Cut into fingers.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + chocolatetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,543 recipes

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

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 richness and a tender texture to the crumb.
Eggs
Provide structure and help the cake set as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as the batter sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and stays light.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender, aerated batter when creamed.

The step that matters

Spread the batter flat and bake for 10 to 15 minutes. The batter needs an even layer so it bakes uniformly. Baking too long dries the cake, while underbaking leaves the centre wet and unset, since the eggs and flour have not yet fully set the structure.

“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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