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Chocolate Cake

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Add the powdered sugar and beat until light.

  3. Mix in the sweet milk.

  4. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  5. Add 1 cup of flour and half of the egg whites, then mix.

  6. Add another cup of flour and the remaining egg whites, then mix.

  7. Stir the baking powder into the remaining ½ cup of flour and add it to the mixture, beating well.

  8. For the filling, boil 2 cups of sugar and 1 cup of water until it ropes.

  9. Gradually pour the syrup over the beaten egg whites, mixing well.

  10. Melt the baker's chocolate with the walnut-sized piece of butter and stir it into the icing.

  11. Flavor the icing with vanilla.

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. Walnut + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,730 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Hazelnutfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, flour, egg, chocolate, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

More chocolate cake recipes

Filling 18French 14Marbled 13Black 11Dark 10Marble 7 See all 565 →

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