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Dessert

Cocoa Tea Cakes

A quick cocoa-flavored cake made with Cottolene, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, and cocoa powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and cocoa powder are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,244 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Cocoa Tea Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the Cottolene and gradually beat in the sugar.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, beating until the mixture is light and smooth.

  3. Alternately add the milk and the sifted flour, baking powder, and cocoa, mixing well.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into muffin tins or a shallow pan.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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. Flour + cocoa powdertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,244 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Sugar + cocoa powdertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Cottolene
Provides fat that makes the cakes tender and moist.
Sugar
Sweetens the cakes and helps create a fine, tender crumb when creamed with fat.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help the batter bind and rise.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cakes as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cakes rise and become light.
Cocoa powder
Adds chocolate flavor and a deep brown color to the cakes.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs one at a time and beating until light and smooth. Eggs added too quickly can fail to emulsify into the creamed fat, causing a curdled, dense batter. Beating each egg in fully traps air and keeps the batter stable for an even rise.

“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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