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.
Mix the batter
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream together the sugar and butter.
Add the sweet milk and mix well.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.
Make the two batters
Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the batter.
Divide the batter in half and pour one half into jelly cake pans.
Grate the Baker's chocolate into the remaining batter and mix well.
Pour the chocolate batter into another set of jelly cake pans.
Bake and assemble
Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Once cooled, layer the cakes with a thick custard made from milk, eggs, and sugar.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,404 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,128 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- White sugar
- Sweetens the batter and helps the crumb brown and stay moist.
- Butter
- Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together.
- Egg whites
- Whipped air bubbles give lift and help set the crumb's structure.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, making the cake rise.
- Baker's chocolate
- Adds chocolate flavour and colour to one of the two batters.
The step that matters
Fold the stiffly beaten egg whites into the batter. Fold gently with a spatula until just combined. The whipped foam holds air bubbles that make the cake rise; overmixing knocks that air out and leaves a dense, tough crumb.
“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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