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Dessert

Chocolate or Black Cake

A chocolate cake made with eggs, flour, sugar, butter, milk, baking powder, and melted chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 or Black 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. Cream the butter, granulated sugar, and egg yolks together until smooth.

  3. Add the milk and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Gently fold the egg whites into the butter mixture.

  5. Sift the flour and baking powder together, then gradually add to the mixture, stirring well.

  6. Dissolve the chocolate in a little hot water and stir it into the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan or layer pans.

  2. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Eggs
Egg whites whipped to stiff peaks trap air, giving the cake lift and a light crumb.
All-purpose flour
Its proteins set during baking, forming the cake's structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and tenderness.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the cake rise.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender texture when creamed with butter.
Chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and color to the batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped egg whites hold the air that lifts the cake. Stirring them in vigorously knocks out that air, so fold gently until just combined.

“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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