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Dessert

Dark Chocolate Loaf Cake

A chocolate loaf cake made with eggs, butter, milk, flour, sugar, baking soda, and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Dark Chocolate Loaf Cake

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.

Prepare

  1. Melt the chocolate with ½ cup milk in a double boiler and let it cool.

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together.

Mix and bake

  1. Add the egg yolk, eggs, melted chocolate mixture, and other ingredients to the creamed mixture.

  2. Combine everything well and pour into a loaf pan.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

Frosting

  1. Use the egg white to make 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.

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. Butter + milktop 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

Flour
Forms the cake's structure as its proteins set during baking.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure, richness, and moisture to the crumb.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps tenderize the crumb while creaming with butter.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidity in the batter to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Chocolate
Contributes deep chocolate flavor, color, and some richness to the batter.

The step that matters

Let the melted chocolate cool before combining. Adding hot melted chocolate to the eggs and creamed butter can cause the eggs to scramble and the butter to melt or separate, leading to a coarse, greasy batter. Cooling it first keeps the emulsion smooth.

“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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