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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake with a chocolate filling made from egg yolks, sugar, milk, and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the cake batter

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

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

  3. Add a little flour to bind the mixture.

  4. Alternately add the milk and remaining flour, mixing well.

  5. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  6. Finally, add the baking powder and mix until just combined.

  7. Pour the batter into three greased cake pans.

Bake and make the filling

  1. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. For the filling, combine the egg yolks, sugar, milk, and chocolate in a double boiler.

  3. Simmer until smooth, stirring constantly.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 and folded in to give the cake lift and an airy structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps tenderise it when creamed with butter.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help thicken the chocolate filling as it cooks.

The step that matters

Simmering the chocolate filling. Stirring constantly over gentle heat in a double boiler keeps the egg yolks from scrambling and gives a smooth, thickened filling.

“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.

More chocolate cake recipes

Filling 18French 14Marbled 13Black 11Dark 10Marble 7 See all 565 →

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