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Dessert

Chocolate Fudge Cake

A chocolate cake with a cocoa‑based filling, baked in a shallow pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cocoa and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 357 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Fudge Cake

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 cake

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

  2. In a bowl, mix sugar, butter, salt, cocoa, baking soda dissolved in sour milk, and flour until well combined.

  3. Add hot water gradually to make a very thin dough.

  4. Pour the batter into a shallow pan and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

  5. Once cooled, split the cake in half.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, boil together sugar, cocoa, hot water, butter, and salt until thickened.

  2. Dissolve cornstarch in a little cold water, then add to the filling mixture along with vanilla.

Assemble

  1. Spread the filling between the layers of the cake.

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. Cocoa + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  3. Butter + milktop 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. Cocoa + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that lifts the cake.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Cocoa
Provides chocolate flavor and color in both the cake and filling.
Cornstarch
Thickens the filling as it heats, giving it a spreadable body.

The step that matters

Thinning the dough with hot water. The batter must be very thin after adding hot water, since too thick a batter bakes dense. Add the water gradually so the batter loosens evenly without becoming runny.

Swap the cocoa

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, vanilla. 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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