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Dessert

New Orleans Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake with a chocolate filling made from melted chocolate, butter, sugar, condensed milk, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

New Orleans 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 cake

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

  2. In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth.

  3. Add the egg yolks and condensed milk, mixing well.

  4. Gradually add half of the sifted flour.

  5. Fold in half of the beaten egg whites.

  6. Add the remaining flour and the rest of the egg whites, mixing gently.

  7. Stir in the baking powder.

  8. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, melt the chocolate in a steam boiler.

  2. Once melted, stir in the butter and granulated sugar for a few seconds.

  3. Add the condensed milk and stir until thick.

  4. Mix in the boiling water to thin it out.

  5. Set the filling aside to cool.

  6. Stir in the vanilla before using.

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. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + condensed milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Condensed milk + chocolatetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together541 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites and yolks give the cake lift, structure and a tender crumb.
Flour
Forms the cake's main structure once its proteins set in the oven.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender texture to the cake.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a soft, tender crumb when creamed.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.
Unsweetened chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and richness of the filling.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites hold the air whipped into them. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air in the batter so the cake rises light instead of dense.

“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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