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Dessert

Chocolate Gems

Chocolate Gems are a baked chocolate cake-like dessert made with butter, sugar, water, flour, cocoa, vanilla, eggs, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Chocolate Gems

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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter, then gradually add the sugar to the butter.

  2. Stir in the water and flour, then beat the mixture thoroughly.

  3. Add the cocoa powder, vanilla extract, and baking powder.

  4. Beat the eggs to stiff froth, then fold the eggs into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into greased gem pans.

  2. Bake for about 20 minutes.

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

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

  2. Cocoa powder + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + cocoa powdertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,244 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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
Whipped to stiff froth, they add air and lift to the batter.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps it brown in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavour.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cakes rise.
Cocoa powder
Gives the cakes their chocolate flavour and colour.

The step that matters

Fold the eggs into the mixture. Folding gently keeps the air whipped into the eggs. Stirring hard would knock that air out, so the cakes would rise less and turn out denser.

“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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