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Dessert

Devil Cake

A chocolate cake made with boiled sugar mixture, butter, eggs, flour, and baked at 350°F, topped with butter icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla 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 ↓

Devil 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 chocolate mixture

  1. Boil 1 cup sugar, ½ cup milk, and 2 squares of chocolate; set aside to cool.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together 1 cup brown sugar and ½ cup butter.

  2. Add 2 beaten eggs, ½ cup milk, and 1 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in a little hot water.

  3. Mix in 2 cups flour and the cooled boiled mixture.

  4. Bake in layers or a large flat tin at 350°F (175°C).

Make the icing

  1. For icing, beat 1 tablespoon butter until creamy, then add confectioner's sugar until thick enough to spread.

  2. Flavor the icing with vanilla and add chopped nuts if desired.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Vanilla + nutstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to help the cake rise and turn lighter.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together.
Chocolate
Gives the cake its chocolate flavor and deep color.
Brown sugar
Adds moisture, sweetness, and a molasses-like depth to the cake.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the cake crumb.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in hot water. Baking soda needs to be fully dissolved and evenly distributed through the batter; clumps can leave bitter, soapy spots and uneven rising.

Swap the nuts

The recipe marks nuts as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, chocolate, butter, egg, flour, vanilla):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Hazelnutfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, chocolate, butter, egg, flour, vanilla. 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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