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Dessert

Century Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake made with butter, sugar, chocolate, flour, eggs, baking soda, and vanilla.

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 ↓

Century Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together using your hands.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolks to the mixture.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the sour cream.

  4. Dissolve the chocolate in the warm water.

  5. Add the flour and the egg whites last.

Bake and ice

  1. Pour the batter into two long baking tins.

  2. Bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

  3. Ice with boiled icing once cooled.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

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
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender crumb and richness.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps trap air when creamed with butter.
Egg yolks
Add richness, fat and emulsifying power that help bind the batter.
Egg whites
Whipped or folded in last, they add lift and an airy structure.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream to produce gas that helps the cake rise.

The step that matters

Add the flour and the egg whites last. Mixing flour too vigorously develops gluten and toughens the cake, and deflating the egg whites removes the air that gives lift. Fold gently to keep the batter light.

“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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