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Bread

Plain Layer Cake

A layered cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, chocolate, molasses, cinnamon, cloves, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Plain Layer Cake

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 ↓

Plain Layer 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. Beat the egg whites separately, then add the beaten yolks to the mixture.

  4. Melt the chocolate with hot water and thicken with pulverized sugar.

  5. In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  6. Combine the dry ingredients with the butter and sugar mixture, then add the sweet milk.

Marble and bake

  1. Divide the batter in half; to one half, add grated chocolate, molasses, cinnamon, and cloves.

  2. Swirl the two batters together to create a marbled effect.

  3. Pour into a greased cake pan and bake 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the cake's structure as its proteins set during baking.
Eggs
Add richness and structure, and help bind the batter together.
Butter
Adds fat for tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep the crumb tender and moist.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises.
Baker's chocolate
Gives the cake its chocolate flavor and darkens the marbled half.

The step that matters

Combining the flour mixture with the batter. Once flour is wet, gluten begins to form, and overmixing makes the cake tough. Stir just until the dry ingredients are incorporated so the crumb 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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