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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A moist chocolate cake made with eggs, sugar, butter, milk, chocolate, flour, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Chocolate Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together with the egg yolks.

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

  4. Add half of the flour and mix well.

  5. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the batter.

  6. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add it to the mixture.

  7. Add the remaining flour and mix until combined.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into a long bread tin and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Once cooled, cut the cake in half and stack the layers.

  3. Ice the cake with boiled icing.

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. Butter + milktop 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 add richness and structure, while whipped whites trap air that lightens the crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake up as it sets.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the cake tender and rich in flavour.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and keep moist.
Baking soda
Reacts in the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps the batter blend into a smooth mixture.

The step that matters

Fold the beaten egg whites in gently. Stiff egg whites trap air that makes the cake light. Stirring them in vigorously knocks that air out, leaving a denser, heavier crumb.

“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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