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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake made with butter, milk, sugar, flour, eggs, baking powder, chocolate, vanilla, and water, finished with chocolate icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Dissolve the chocolate in boiling water.

  2. In a bowl, cream the butter and gradually add the sugar and egg yolks, beating thoroughly.

  3. Mix in the sweet milk, flour, baking powder, vanilla, and dissolved chocolate.

  4. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared cake pan and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Ice 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. 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. 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in to add air and lift, so the cake rises and stays light.
Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsify the batter, helping it hold together smoothly.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise.
Chocolate
Gives the cake its chocolate flavor and deep color.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Stir gently with a folding motion so the whipped foam keeps its air. Vigorous stirring deflates the whites, and the cake bakes up denser and less light.

“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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