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Dessert

Chocolate Caramel Cake

A layered cake with chocolate caramel filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 Caramel 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 batter

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Stir in the beaten egg yolks and then add the milk.

  4. Sift the flour and baking powder together, then add to the mixture.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites and vanilla.

  6. Pour the batter into four deep cake tins and bake until done.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, combine 1 pint of sweet milk, 2 cups of sugar, ¼ cake of Baker's chocolate, and butter the size of an egg in a saucepan.

  2. Cook until thick and spread between the cake layers.

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. Vanilla + chocolatetop 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites lighten it and add structure as it bakes.
Flour
Gluten and starch form the cake's main structure, setting it as it bakes.
Butter
Fat creamed with sugar traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps build a light crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture to the batter, loosening it and softening the crumb.

The step that matters

Cook the filling until thick. The filling must be cooked long enough to thicken; sugar and milk set as they cool, so undercooked filling stays runny and soaks into the layers.

“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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