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Dessert

Chocolate Layer Cake

A two-layered cake made with eggs, sugar, milk, butter, flour, baking powder, and grated chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Chocolate Layer 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. In another bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  4. Add the egg yolks and sweet milk to the sugar mixture, and mix well.

  5. Sift together the flour and baking powder, then gradually add to the wet mixture.

  6. Divide the batter in half; to one half, add the grated chocolate and mix well.

Bake and assemble

  1. Pour the light batter into two greased cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes.

  2. Pour the chocolate batter into another greased pan and bake for 25-30 minutes.

  3. Once baked, layer the cakes alternately, spreading chocolate icing between each layer.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites add lift and a light crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender, browned crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Grated chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and deepens the color of one batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whipped whites trap air that gives the cake its lift; deflating them by overmixing leaves a dense, flat cake. Stir gently and stop once combined.

“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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