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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A moist chocolate cake made with melted chocolate, butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 chocolate

  1. Melt the chocolate and mix it with boiling water.

  2. Set aside to cool.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the milk, flour, baking powder, and cooled chocolate.

  4. Add the vanilla and mix until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. 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. 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
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for tender texture and rich flavor, and helps trap air when creamed with sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps create a light, tender crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Baker's chocolate
Gives the cake its chocolate flavor and deep color.

The step that matters

Let the chocolate cool before adding it to the batter. Hot chocolate can melt the butter in the creamed mixture and affect the batter's texture. Cooling it first keeps the batter emulsified so the cake bakes evenly and stays tender.

“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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