Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Cakes

A light chocolate cake made with egg whites, grated chocolate, powdered sugar, cinnamon, crumbled bread, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,287 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Chocolate Cakes

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.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  2. Gradually add the powdered sugar while continuing to beat.

  3. Mix the grated chocolate, cinnamon, and bread crumbs together.

  4. Gradually add this mixture to the egg and sugar, then add vanilla and beat well.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls onto buttered paper, about three inches apart.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for twenty minutes, first ten minutes on the floor and the last ten minutes on the rack.

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. Cinnamon + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Chocolate + cinnamontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,808 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Egg whites
Whipped to a stiff foam, they give the cakes their light, airy structure.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps stabilize the whipped egg white foam.
Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and richness in the cakes.
Baker's bread
Crumbs add body to the batter and help bind the chocolate into the mixture.

The step that matters

Adding the chocolate mixture to the egg foam. Folding gently and gradually keeps the air bubbles in the whipped egg whites intact. Overmixing or dumping it in at once deflates the foam, so the cakes bake up flat and dense instead of 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.

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipes