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Dessert

Nut Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake with nuts, mashed potato, and egg yolks baked into a moist batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Nut 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 batter

  1. Cream the butter and beat in the sugar.

  2. Add the hot mashed potato and melted chocolate, mixing well.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  4. Sift together the flour, baking powder, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the mixture, alternating with the sweet milk.

  6. Stir in the nut meats.

Bake and finish

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

  2. Cover with marshmallow icing once cooled.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Egg whites
Beaten whites trap air, helping the cake rise and turn light.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter.
Mashed potato
Adds moisture so the cake stays soft and moist.
Pastry flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the cake to rise.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites gently. Beaten egg whites hold trapped air that gives the cake its lift. Vigorous stirring knocks that air out, leaving a denser cake.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, potato, nutmeg, chocolate, milk. 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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