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Dessert

Chocolate Layer Cake

A chocolate cake with a chocolate mixture folded into the batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 Layer 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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the powdered sugar and butter until smooth.

  3. Add the milk, flour, and eggs and mix until well combined.

Make the chocolate mixture

  1. Cut the unsweetened chocolate into small pieces and combine them with ¼ cup milk in a saucepan.

  2. Add 7 teaspoons of sugar and 1 teaspoon of cornstarch to the chocolate mixture.

  3. Heat over low heat, stirring until the chocolate dissolves and the mixture thickens.

Bake

  1. Fold the chocolate mixture into the cake batter.

  2. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  3. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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
Provide structure and richness as they set during baking.
All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the cake its structure.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and helps trap air when creamed with sugar.
Unsweetened chocolate
Supplies chocolate flavor and color to the batter.
Cornstarch
Thickens the chocolate mixture so it blends smoothly into the batter.

The step that matters

Heat the chocolate mixture gently. Chocolate can seize or scorch over high heat. Low heat with steady stirring lets it melt smoothly and thicken evenly with the cornstarch, so the batter does not end up grainy or lumpy.

“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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