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Dessert

Black Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake with a chocolate filling made from sugar, cocoa‑nut, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Black Chocolate Cake

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Black Chocolate 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 cake

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the egg yolks one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the milk and baking powder.

  4. Melt the chocolate and mix it into the batter.

  5. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and fold them into the batter.

  6. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, combine the sugar with cold water in a saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring constantly.

  2. Add the cocoa-nut and egg whites, mixing until smooth.

  3. Melt the chocolate and stir it into the filling mixture.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Chocolate + cocoatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-ethyl-3,6-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  3. Milk + cocoatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and structure, and whipped whites lighten the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.
Chocolate
Adds deep flavour and richness to both the cake and the filling.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a smooth, pourable batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites beaten to stiff peaks hold air that makes the cake rise. Overmixing when folding knocks that air out, leaving a dense cake.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Pecansfits better
  2. Almondfits about as well
  3. Cocoathe original
  4. Peanutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, 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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