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
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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Beat the eggs separately and then add them to the butter and sugar mixture.
In a separate bowl, combine the milk, flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.
Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the wet mixture until well combined.
Bake and finish
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Let the cake cool before icing with chocolate icing.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake up as it sets in the oven.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, and help bind the batter together.
- Butter
- Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavour.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake, tenderizes the crumb, and helps it brown.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
- Milk
- Supplies moisture that hydrates the flour and keeps the crumb soft.
The step that matters
Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the wet mixture until well combined.. Mixing only until the flour is combined limits gluten development. Overmixing makes the cake tough and dense, while adding the dry ingredients gradually helps the batter blend evenly.
“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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