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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A moist chocolate cake with butter, flour, sugar, egg whites, vanilla, lemon juice, milk, and chocolate icing.

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

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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream the butter and gradually add the sugar, mixing well.

  3. Add the egg whites and lemon juice, and beat thoroughly.

  4. Alternately add the flour and milk, mixing until combined.

  5. Sift the baking powder with the last half cup of flour and mix in.

  6. Divide the batter into two thick layers and bake for 20 minutes.

Make the icing

  1. For the icing, beat together the egg whites and confectioners' sugar for 5 minutes.

  2. Melt the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water, then add to the sugar mixture and beat until thick.

Assemble

  1. Spread a thick layer of icing between the cake layers and over the top and sides.

  2. Let the cake stand until the icing hardens.

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

Flour
Builds the cake's structure as its proteins set during baking.
Egg whites
Add structure and lift, and help the batter hold its shape while baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, making the cake rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a rich flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep it moist and tender.
Unsweetened chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and, melted into the icing, gives it body.

The step that matters

Alternately add the flour and milk, mixing until combined.. Once flour is wet, its gluten develops with mixing, so overmixing makes the cake tough. Mix only until the flour disappears.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, sugar, egg, vanilla, milk, chocolate):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sugar, egg, vanilla, milk, chocolate. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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