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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake made with butter, sugar, milk, eggs, flour, leavening agents, and chocolate, topped with a chocolate icing.

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the cake

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the milk and eggs (reserve 3 egg whites for icing) and mix well.

  4. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and cream of tartar, then gradually add to the wet mixture.

  5. Divide the batter into three deep jelly tins and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

Ice and assemble

  1. For the icing, beat the reserved egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the powdered sugar and mix in the grated chocolate and vanilla.

  2. Once the cakes are cool, spread icing between the layers and on top.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavour.
Eggs
Add structure and richness; the whites beaten stiff give the icing its airy body.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as the batter sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes lighter.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidic ingredients to produce gas, helping the cake rise and brown.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps create a light, fluffy texture.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites for the icing. Egg whites must be beaten until stiff without any yolk or grease present, because fat prevents them from holding air. Under-beaten or greasy whites give a loose, runny icing.

“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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