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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A moist chocolate cake with butter, eggs, sour milk, and icing made from sweet milk and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. 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 batter

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

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

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Stir in the sour milk, baking soda, and vanilla extract.

  5. Melt the Baker's chocolate and mix it into the batter.

  6. Gradually add the flour, mixing until just combined.

Bake and ice

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 30-35 minutes.

  2. For the icing, mix sweet milk with powdered sugar until it reaches a spreadable consistency.

  3. Once the cake is cool, spread the icing on top.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the batter as it sets in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a lighter crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender crumb when creamed with butter.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise and keeps it moist.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour in gradually and only until combined. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form; overmixing makes the cake tough and dense. Stopping as soon as the flour is incorporated keeps the crumb tender.

“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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