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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake with a chocolate filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

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 cake

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

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the sweet milk and flour, then mix well.

  4. Fold in the egg whites gently.

  5. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, combine 2 cups sugar, ½ cup sweet milk, ½ cup butter, and ½ cup chocolate or cocoa in a saucepan.

  2. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly.

  3. Remove from heat and beat until cool enough to spread.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 and add tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Egg whites
Provide structure and lift when folded in, helping the cake rise and hold its shape.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the cake to rise in the oven.
Flour
Forms the gluten and starch structure that sets the cake's crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps give it a tender texture.
Chocolate or cocoa
Gives the filling its chocolate flavor and deep color.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Egg whites hold air bubbles that give the cake its lift. Vigorous mixing knocks that air out, leaving a denser, flatter cake.

“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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