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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake with a chocolate frosting.

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 ↓

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 brown sugar and butter.

  3. Add the sour milk and eggs, mixing well.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour and baking soda.

  5. Stir the flour mixture into the wet ingredients.

  6. Dissolve the grated chocolate in the boiling water and add to the batter.

  7. Mix until smooth and pour into two greased cake pans.

Bake and frost

  1. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. For the frosting, boil the milk and stir in the white sugar.

  3. Add the chocolate and stir until melted and smooth.

  4. Frost the cooled cake layers.

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

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps give the cake a tender, moist crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture when creamed with the sugar.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise and stay tender.
Eggs
Add structure and moisture, helping bind the batter and set in the oven.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release gas, making the cake rise.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour mixture into the wet ingredients. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form. Mixing only until combined keeps the crumb tender, while overmixing makes the cake tough.

“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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