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Dessert

One-egg Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake made with one egg, butter, milk, sugar, flour, cocoa, spices, and topped with grated chocolate icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

One-egg 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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the milk and mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, cream of tartar, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and nutmeg.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  3. Let cool and top with grated chocolate icing.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the crumb tender and rich.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, creamed with butter, helps trap air for a lighter texture.
Cocoa
Supplies the chocolate flavor and dark color of the cake.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidic ingredients to release gas that helps the cake rise.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter so the dry ingredients blend in.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form; overmixing toughens the batter and makes the cake dense and rubbery, so mix only until no dry flour remains.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, sugar, flour, cinnamon, cream, clove):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, sugar, flour, cinnamon, cream, clove. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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