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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

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

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

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 custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine grated chocolate, ½ cup sweet milk, ⅔ cup brown sugar, and egg yolk. Boil until thick like custard, then cool.

Make the batter

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

  2. Add ½ cup sweet milk and 2 eggs to the butter mixture, then mix well.

  3. Stir in the cooled custard mixture.

  4. Dissolve 1 teaspoon baking soda in a little boiling water and add to the batter.

  5. Flavor with 1 teaspoon vanilla and mix until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. 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. 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

Eggs
Add structure and moisture, and enrich the batter so it sets as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the crumb tender and rich.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake's shape as it sets.
Baking soda
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the cake and adds moisture and a deeper flavor.
Grated chocolate
Gives the cake its chocolate flavor, color, and richness.

The step that matters

Boil the custard until thick, then cool it. The egg yolk thickens the chocolate mixture as it heats, but high heat can curdle or scramble it. Cooking gently while stirring gives a smooth custard, and cooling it before adding it to the batter keeps the batter from being overheated.

“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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