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Dessert

Devil Food Cake

A chocolate cake made with mashed potatoes, nuts, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Devil Food Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

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

Make the batter

  1. Add the egg yolks, mashed potatoes, grated chocolate, and nut meats, then mix well.

  2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

  3. Add the dry ingredients and milk alternately to the butter mixture, then stir until combined.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 sets the cake's crumb as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure, moisture, and richness, and help the batter hold its lift.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while creaming aerates the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the cake rise in the oven.
Mashed potatoes
Add moisture and softness that keep the cake tender for longer.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. The whites hold air that lifts the batter. Vigorous stirring knocks that air out, leaving a dense, flat cake.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, butter, egg, chocolate):

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, butter, egg, chocolate. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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