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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A layered chocolate cake with a chocolate filling made from melted chocolate, cream, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Chocolate 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.

Make the cake

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

  2. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  4. In another bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder.

  5. Alternately add the flour mixture and milk to the butter mixture, starting and ending with flour.

  6. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the batter.

  7. Pour the batter into jelly‑cake tins and bake for 25–30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, dissolve the chocolate in the cream or milk over low heat.

  2. Stir in the beaten egg and sugar, and cook until thickened.

  3. Spread the filling between the cake layers once cooled.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Whites trapped by whipping give the cake lift, and yolks add richness and tenderness.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps hold air for a light texture.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.
Baker's chocolate
Provides chocolate flavour and, melted into cream or milk, sets the filling.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites must be beaten to stiff peaks and folded in gently; overmixing deflates the air they hold, leaving a dense cake instead of a light one.

“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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