Skip to main content
Dessert

Caramel Cake

A layered cake with chocolate batter, caramel filling, and chocolate glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Caramel 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.

Make the chocolate base

  1. Combine melted chocolate, ½ cup milk, and 1 cup sugar in a saucepan. Cook until smooth and let cool.

Make and bake the batter

  1. Mix 1 cup sugar, ½ cup butter, 2 eggs, ½ cup milk, 2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, and vanilla extract in a bowl.

  2. Add the cooled chocolate mixture to the batter and mix well.

  3. Bake in layers at 350°F (175°C) until done.

Make the filling and coating

  1. Beat 2 egg whites with an equal amount of water until frothy. Gradually add 2 pounds confectioner's sugar until very thick.

  2. Spread the filling ¼ inch thick between the layers.

  3. Combine ½ cake of chocolate, 1 cup sugar, and ½ cup milk. Flavor with vanilla and boil until creamy.

  4. Pour the coating over 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. 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the crumb.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake batter.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich texture in the crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the layers rise and become light.
Baker's chocolate
Gives the cake its chocolate flavor and color.

The step that matters

Beating the egg white frosting until very thick. Egg whites whipped with sugar form a foam that sets the filling; under-beaten whites stay runny and the filling will not hold between layers.

“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.

More caramel cake recipes

Chocolate 16Filling 11Potato 9Maple 4 See all 114 →

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipes