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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake made with grated chocolate, milk, eggs, butter, sugar, flour, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

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.

Make the chocolate mixture

  1. Combine grated chocolate, sweet milk, and egg yolk in a double boiler.

  2. Cook over hot water until well combined.

  3. Set aside to cool.

Make the batter

  1. Beat eggs, milk, butter, and sugar in a large bowl until smooth.

  2. Stir in the cooled chocolate mixture.

  3. Dissolve baking soda in a little milk.

  4. Add the flour and dissolved baking soda to the batter.

  5. Mix until just combined.

Bake

  1. Pour batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick inserted in the center 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep it moist and tender while browning.
Grated chocolate
Adds the main chocolate flavor and richness to the batter.

The step that matters

Mix until just combined. Once flour and baking soda are added, overmixing develops gluten and knocks out the gas bubbles, making the cake tough and dense rather than light.

“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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