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Dessert

Midnight Cake

A chocolate cake with marshmallow filling, baked in two layers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Cocoa and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 357 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Midnight 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 base

  1. Heat ½ cup sweet milk in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in 1 cup brown sugar and 1 cup cocoa until melted.

  3. Beat 1 egg yolk with 1 tablespoon milk.

  4. Add the mixture to the hot chocolate gradually.

  5. Remove from heat, let cool, and stir in 1 teaspoon vanilla.

Make the batter

  1. In a separate bowl, cream ½ cup butter and ½ cup brown sugar.

  2. Add 2 egg yolks and beat well.

  3. Mix in ½ cup sweet milk and 2 cups sifted flour.

  4. Add the chocolate mixture and the beaten egg whites.

  5. Dissolve 1 teaspoon baking soda in 1 tablespoon vinegar.

  6. Fold the dissolved mixture into the batter.

  7. Beat the mixture for five minutes.

Bake and make the filling

  1. Bake in two layers at 350°F (175°C).

  2. For the filling, cook 1 cup white sugar, 1 cup brown sugar, 1 cup water, and 1 tablespoon vinegar until it spins a thread.

  3. Add a few marshmallows.

  4. Pour the marshmallow mixture over the beaten egg whites.

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. Cocoa + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 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. Milk + cocoatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavour in the batter.
Cocoa
Gives the cake its chocolate flavour and dark colour.
Egg whites
Trap air when beaten, helping the cake rise and turn light.
Baking soda
Reacts with the vinegar to release gas, helping the batter rise.

The step that matters

Fold the dissolved mixture into the batter. Baking soda reacts with vinegar immediately, releasing gas. Folding gently keeps the bubbles in the batter so the cake rises well instead of going flat.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits about as well
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, egg, vanilla, butter, flour, vinegar. 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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