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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A layered chocolate cake with a chocolate filling made from egg whites, sugar, and chocolate.

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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl.

  3. Add the milk and flour, then mix in the egg whites.

  4. Sift the baking powder into the flour before adding it to the mixture.

  5. Divide the batter into six layers and bake until done.

Make the chocolate layers and filling

  1. For the chocolate layers, add the grated chocolate to the remaining batter and bake in layers.

  2. For the filling, beat the egg whites and sugar to a stiff froth, then fold in the chocolate.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + chocolatetop 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

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb as it is creamed with sugar.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Egg whites
Add structure and help bind the batter; whipped whites lighten the filling.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the layers rise and become light.
Grated chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and color to the layers and filling.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to a stiff froth for the filling. Egg whites must be whipped until stiff so they hold air; under-beaten or greasy whites will not hold their volume, and over-mixing when folding in the chocolate can knock out that air and make the filling dense.

“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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