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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A layered chocolate cake with butter, sour cream, and chocolate filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. 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 batter

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the sour cream and mix well.

  4. Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  5. Add the flour and whipped egg whites alternately to the mixture, mixing until smooth.

  6. Add vanilla extract and beat until the batter bubbles.

Bake and fill

  1. Pour the batter into a pan or jelly tins and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. For the filling, combine the chocolate, cream, brown sugar, and butter in a saucepan.

  3. Cook until it forms a soft ball in cold water, then remove from heat.

  4. Beat the mixture until creamy and spread it on 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. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  5. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts the batter as it bakes.
All-purpose flour
Forms the cake's structure once its proteins set in the oven.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, adding tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and a slight acidity that keeps the crumb tender.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a light, fluffy texture when creamed.
Baker's chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and body of the filling.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling to soft ball stage. Sugar syrup set by cooking to soft ball stage firms as it cools; overcooking makes the filling hard, undercooking leaves it runny. Watching the cold-water test matters.

“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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