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Dessert

Caramel Cake

A layered cake with caramel and chocolate custard, topped with jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Caramel 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 batter

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

  2. Cream together 1 cup sugar and ½ cup butter.

  3. Add ½ cup sweet milk, 2 eggs, and 2½ cups flour to the mixture.

  4. Dissolve 1 teaspoon baking soda in hot water and mix it in.

Make the chocolate custard

  1. In a saucepan, heat 1 cup sweet milk and 1 cup grated Baker's chocolate until dissolved.

  2. Stir in 1 cup sugar and the lightly beaten egg yolk.

  3. Combine the chocolate custard with the cake batter when cool.

Bake and layer

  1. Bake in three layers.

  2. Layer the cake with jelly for a tart taste.

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure to the cake crumb.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to help it rise.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the batter.
Baker's chocolate
Gives the cake its chocolate flavor and color in the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps brown the crumb.

The step that matters

Combine the chocolate custard with the cake batter when cool.. If the custard is still hot, it can curdle the eggs or thin the batter, changing the cake's texture and rise.

“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.

More caramel cake recipes

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