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Dessert

Filling for Chocolate Cake

A sweet frosting made from sugar syrup, egg white, and chocolate, used to fill and top chocolate cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Filling for Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the white frosting

  1. In a saucepan, mix sugar, cream of tartar, and water. Boil until it reaches a thread stage.

  2. Beat the egg white until very stiff.

  3. Slowly stir the syrup into the beaten egg white and continue to beat until thick.

Make the chocolate frosting and assemble

  1. Spread the white frosting on the cake.

  2. Make another batch of frosting like the first, adding the unsweetened chocolate to it.

  3. Cover the white frosting with the chocolate frosting, then stack the layers of cake and press them together.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + chocolatetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Dissolves into the water and sets into a glossy, sweet frosting structure as the syrup cools.
Egg white
Whipped into a foam that gives the frosting its light, airy body and volume.
Unsweetened chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and deep color to the second frosting.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the syrup, helping keep the frosting smooth and stable when beaten.

The step that matters

Slowly stir the syrup into the beaten egg white. Adding hot syrup too fast can deflate the whipped egg white or cook it unevenly. A thin, steady stream while beating keeps the foam stable and lets the frosting thicken smoothly.

“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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