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Dessert

Chocolate Nut Cake

A moist chocolate cake with walnuts, made by combining butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, salt, milk, vanilla, melted chocolate, and folded in egg whites.

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

Chocolate Nut 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 the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream the butter and gradually add 1 cup of sugar.

  3. Beat the egg yolks until thick and light, then add the second cup of sugar.

  4. Combine the butter mixture with the egg yolk mixture.

  5. Melt the chocolate over hot water and add it to the mixture.

  6. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt, then add alternately with the milk.

  7. Fold in the walnut meats and vanilla extract.

Bake

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the batter.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered and lined 2‑inch deep cake pan.

  3. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Vanilla + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,730 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Flour + buttertop 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
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites lighten its crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the cake its structure.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the creamed base.
Fine sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps tenderize the crumb while creaming with butter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the cake rises and becomes light.
Chocolate
Adds rich chocolate flavor and fat that softens the crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites whipped until stiff hold the air that lightens the cake. Folding gently keeps that air in, while vigorous stirring would deflate the batter and produce a denser cake.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, milk, vanilla, flour, meat, butter):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Pecansfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk, vanilla, flour, meat, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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