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Dessert

French Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake made with caramelized chocolate, butter, eggs, milk, flour, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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French Chocolate Cake

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

French Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chocolate mixture

  1. Boil 2 squares of chocolate, 1 cup of sugar, ½ cup of sweet milk, and 1 egg yolk until thickened, then set aside to cool.

Make the batter

  1. Cream 1 cup of sugar with ⅔ cup of butter.

  2. Add 2 well-beaten eggs, then mix in 1 cup of milk and 1 teaspoon of vanilla.

  3. Stir in the cooled chocolate mixture.

  4. Add 2 cups of flour and 2 teaspoons of baking powder.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake in three layers.

  2. Assemble with your choice of white frosting.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Milk + buttertop 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Chocolate
Provides the main chocolate flavour and deep colour of the cake.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep the crumb tender.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavour.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as the batter sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the layers rise and become light.

The step that matters

Cool the chocolate mixture before stirring it in. Adding a hot chocolate mixture to creamed butter and sugar can melt the butter and deflate the batter, so it should be cooled first.

“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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