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Dessert

French Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake with a custard filling made from eggs, milk, sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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French Chocolate Cake

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 ↓

French 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 batter

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

  2. Beat the egg whites in a bowl until stiff.

  3. Cream together the sugar and butter in another bowl.

  4. Add the milk and mix well.

  5. Incorporate the flour and baking powder into the mixture.

  6. Divide the batter in half.

  7. Stir the grated chocolate into one half.

  8. Add the egg yolks.

Bake the layers

  1. Pour the light and dark batters into separate cake pans.

  2. Bake until done.

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk and sugar in a saucepan for the custard.

  2. Whisk the eggs and flour or cornstarch together in a bowl.

  3. Slowly add the hot milk mixture to the egg mixture, stirring constantly.

  4. Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook until thickened.

  5. Once cool, flavor the custard with vanilla.

Assemble

  1. Spread the custard between the layers of cake.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  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

Egg whites
Beaten until stiff, they trap air and give the cake its light, airy structure.
Flour
Provides the protein and starch that set the batter into a firm cake crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the cakes to rise in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while creaming adds air to the batter.
Grated chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and darkens the batter in one of the two layers.

The step that matters

Adding the hot milk to the eggs for the custard. Pouring the hot milk in slowly while stirring constantly tempers the eggs, so they warm gradually instead of scrambling. Cooking with constant stirring then thickens the custard evenly as the egg proteins set.

“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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