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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake with a chocolate icing made from cake Baker's chocolate, milk, sugar, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk 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 cake

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

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff.

  3. In another bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  4. Add the water, flour, baking powder, and vanilla to the sugar mixture, then fold in the egg whites.

  5. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the icing

  1. For the icing, combine the chocolate, milk, sugar, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over medium heat until thickened like cream, then let cool.

Assemble

  1. Spread the icing between the layers and on top of the 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 + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Vanilla + chocolatetop 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

Egg whites
Beaten until stiff, they trap air that helps the cake rise and gives it a light texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and tenderness to the cake and icing.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the cake rise.
Baker's chocolate
Gives the icing its chocolate flavor and body as it thickens.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stirring instead of gently folding deflates the whipped egg whites, losing the air that lifts the cake and leaving it dense.

“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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