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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake with a sugar and chocolate icing.

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the cake

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the white sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the milk and mix well.

  4. Gradually add the flour, mixing until just combined.

  5. Fold in the well-beaten egg whites gently until incorporated.

  6. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the icing and assemble

  1. For the icing, boil 1 cup of water with 3 cups of white sugar until it reaches a candy-like consistency.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the well-beaten egg whites, butter, and Baker's chocolate until smooth.

  3. Spread the icing between the layers of the cooled cake.

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake up as it bakes.
Egg whites
Trap air and set when heated, giving the cake lift and a light crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour in both the cake and the icing.
White sugar
Sweetens the cake and, when boiled, forms the candy-like base of the icing.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid that hydrates the flour into batter.
Baker's chocolate
Gives the icing its chocolate flavour and rich, set body.

The step that matters

Boiling the icing sugar syrup. The sugar and water must reach a candy-like consistency; undercooked syrup stays runny and overcooked syrup turns grainy or hard, so the icing will not spread or set well.

“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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