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Dessert

Black Chocolate Cake

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Black 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 ↓

Black 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.

Make the chocolate paste

  1. Boil grated chocolate and 2 egg yolks together, stirring constantly until thick.

  2. Set the mixture aside to cool.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Add 2 egg yolks and sweet milk to the creamed mixture.

  3. Mix in flour.

  4. Beat egg whites until stiff.

  5. Fold the beaten egg whites into the batter.

  6. Dissolve baking soda in boiling water.

  7. Add the dissolved baking soda to the mixture along with vanilla extract.

  8. Pour batter into a prepared cake pan.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Let the cake cool.

  3. Frost the cooled cake with white icing.

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. 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Egg whites
Beaten until stiff and folded in, they add lift and an airy structure.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter, with structure set during baking.
Grated chocolate
Cooked into a thick paste that gives the cake its chocolate flavor and moisture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stirring beaten whites in vigorously deflates the foam trapped in them, so the cake rises less and turns dense. Fold gently with a spatula to keep the air.

“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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