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Dessert

York Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake made with butter, sugar, milk, flour, egg whites, almond oil, baking powder, vanilla, and chocolate, topped with a cream frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

York Chocolate 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. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Add the milk to the batter.

  4. Add the flour and mix well.

  5. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff.

  6. Fold the egg whites into the batter gently.

  7. Add almond oil to the batter.

  8. Add the baking powder and mix until combined.

Bake the cake

  1. Pour the batter into cake pans.

  2. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make and finish the frosting

  1. For the frosting, boil the sugar and cream or milk for 3 minutes without stirring.

  2. Once it ropes from the spoon, pour into a bowl.

  3. Beat the frosting until it begins to harden.

  4. Add vanilla to the frosting.

  5. Spread the frosting over the cooled cake layers.

  6. Melt the chocolate.

  7. Spread the melted chocolate over the cream between the layers and on top.

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. Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites beaten until stiff trap air, giving the cake its light, risen structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds fat that gives a tender, rich crumb.
Flour
Its proteins set during baking, forming the cake's structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown, and makes the boiled frosting.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise.

The step that matters

Boiling the frosting without stirring. Stirring while sugar syrup boils can trigger crystallisation, leaving a grainy frosting. Boiling it to the rope stage sets how firm the frosting will become as it cools and thickens.

“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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