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Dessert

Devils Food Cake

A chocolate cake made with sugar, flour, lard, baking powder, baking soda, sour cream, chocolate, vanilla, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Devils Food 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 the batter

  1. Sift all the dry ingredients together three times.

  2. Cream the sugar and lard until light.

  3. Add the unbeaten egg and beat until well combined.

  4. Dissolve the chocolate in the sour cream.

  5. Add the chocolate mixture alternately with the dry ingredients, beating well after each addition.

  6. Stir in the vanilla.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into two 9-inch layer pans.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.

  3. Ice with white or chocolate frosting.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Lard or other shortening
Creaming with sugar traps air and tenderises the crumb, adding softness.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness to the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream and chocolate to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and acidity, which tenderises the crumb and activates the baking soda.
Chocolate
Gives the cake its colour, deep chocolate flavour and some moisture.

The step that matters

Adding the chocolate mixture alternately with the dry ingredients. Adding in alternating portions and beating well after each addition keeps the batter smooth and emulsified. Overbeating after the flour goes in can develop gluten and toughen the crumb.

“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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