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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake with butter, flour, chocolate, almonds, sugar, eggs, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chocolate Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Beat the butter until creamy.

Make the batter

  1. Add the egg yolks and grated chocolate, warmed in the oven, and mix well.

  2. Incorporate the flour, sugar, and finely ground almonds.

  3. Fold in the egg whites beaten to a froth and the salt.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared pan and bake.

  2. Ice with chocolate to keep it moist.

  3. Let the cake rest for three days before serving.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Egg yolks enrich the batter, and whipped whites add air that gives the cake structure.
Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich texture.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten that set the cake's structure as it bakes.
Sal volatile
A leavening agent that releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise and lighten.
Almonds
Finely ground almonds add moisture, body and a nutty flavour to the crumb.
Chocolate
Adds richness, deep flavour and moisture to the batter and the icing.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Beaten egg whites hold air bubbles that help the cake rise. Folding gently rather than stirring keeps those bubbles intact, so the batter does not deflate before it reaches the oven.

“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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