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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake made with butter, brown sugar, eggs, grated chocolate, boiling water, flour, baking soda, salt, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Chocolate Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter.

  2. Gradually add the brown sugar.

  3. Beat the eggs until very light.

  4. Add the eggs to the mixture.

  5. Melt the grated chocolate over hot water.

  6. Mix in the boiling water until smooth.

  7. Combine the chocolate mixture with the other ingredients. Mix well.

  8. Pour the batter into a greased pan.

Bake

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F to 325°F (150°C to 160°C) until done.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and its molasses gives a deeper flavor.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help bind the batter.
Grated chocolate
Provides chocolate flavor and color, and adds richness to the batter.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as it sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic and moist batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs until very light. Beaten eggs trap air that expands in the oven and lightens the batter. Under-beaten eggs can leave the cake dense and heavy.

“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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