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Dessert

Chocolate Drop Cakes

Chocolate Drop Cakes are small cakes made with butter, sugar, chocolate, eggs, almonds, milk, flour, baking powder, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Chocolate Drop Cakes

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. Melt the chocolate and set aside.

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Stir in the melted chocolate and mix until combined.

  5. Add the chopped almonds, milk, flour, baking powder, and vanilla extract. Mix until smooth.

Bake and frost

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into small tins.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.

  3. Frost with the reserved egg whites whipped to stiff peaks.

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. Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  4. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air, giving the cakes a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the batter as the cakes set in the oven.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven, helping the cakes rise and become lighter.
Baker's chocolate
Gives the cakes their chocolate flavor and a dense, fudgy richness.
Blanched almonds
Add texture and a nutty flavor that complements the chocolate.

The step that matters

Beat the eggs in one at a time. Adding each egg and mixing well lets it emulsify fully into the creamed butter and sugar. Adding them too fast can cause curdling, which weakens the batter's texture.

“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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