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Dessert

Chocolate Torte

A chocolate torte made with sweet chocolate, crackers, almonds, eggs, sugar, spices, lemon juice, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,733 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Chocolate Torte

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar for 30 minutes.

  2. Add the ground crackers, ground almonds, spices, lemon juice, and brandy to the yolk mixture.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold them into the chocolate mixture.

  4. Pour the batter into two large loaf pans.

Bake

  1. Bake for 1 hour.

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. Chocolate + almondtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Chocolate + brandytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together287 recipes

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

  5. Almond + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,969 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites provide lift and airy structure, while yolks add richness and set the crumb.
Sweet chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and richness, and firms as the torte cools.
Ground crackers
Bulk and light structure that help hold the torte together in place of flour.
Ground sweet almonds
Add moisture, fat, and a tender, nutty texture to the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps stabilize the beaten yolks.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiff whites hold the batter's air and lift. Overmixing deflates them, so fold gently until no white streaks remain, which keeps the torte light rather than dense.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chocolate, almond, egg, sugar, brandy):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, almond, egg, sugar, brandy. 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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