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Dessert

Ceeam Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake with a custard filling and chocolate icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,404 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Ceeam 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. Beat the eggs until light.

  3. Mix in the sugar and flour.

  4. Add the milk and baking powder, and combine well.

  5. Pour the batter into a deep jelly pan and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

  6. Let the cake cool, then cut it in half horizontally.

Make the custard

  1. Prepare the custard by heating 1 cup of milk.

  2. In a bowl, whisk together 2 eggs, ½ cup sugar, 3 teaspoons flour, and 1 teaspoon cornstarch.

  3. Slowly add the hot milk to the egg mixture, stirring constantly.

  4. Return the mixture to the heat and cook until thickened, then let it cool.

Assemble and frost

  1. Spread the custard between the layers of the cake.

  2. Frost the top and sides with chocolate icing.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Flour + milktop 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).

Flour and milk 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

Eggs
Provide structure and richness, setting the cake crumb and thickening the custard.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake and thickens the custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the cake a tender crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Milk
Adds moisture to the batter and forms the body of the custard.
Cornstarch
Thickens the custard so it sets smoothly when cooked.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard until thickened. Adding hot milk slowly and stirring constantly keeps the eggs from scrambling. Cooking until thickened lets the starch gelatinize and the custard set. Undercooked custard stays runny and will not hold between the cake layers.

“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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