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Dessert

Chocolate Glace

A chocolate cake with white icing flavored with orange juice and thick chocolate icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Glace

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 batter

  1. Beat the butter until creamy, then gradually mix in the sugar.

  2. Add the melted chocolate and the eggs, beating vigorously for five minutes.

  3. Stir in the milk, then mix in the flour and baking powder.

  4. Pour the batter into a buttered shallow cake pan.

Bake and ice

  1. Bake for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Ice with white icing flavored with orange juice, then top with thick chocolate icing once set.

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. Chocolate + milktop 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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and give a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the creamed butter hold air for lift.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake sets.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Baker's chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and deep color to the batter.

The step that matters

Beating the butter, sugar, and eggs. Beating creams air into the butter and sugar, which gives the cake its lift. Adding the eggs gradually and beating well keeps the batter smooth and stable so it rises evenly and does not turn dense or curdled.

“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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