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Dessert

Small Cakes

Small cakes with chocolate batter, a buttered cracker on top, baked and frosted with chocolate icing and a chocolate center.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Small Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until very light.

  2. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  3. Stir in the milk and 1½ cups of flour until smooth.

  4. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  5. Fold the egg whites into the mixture.

  6. Sift the remaining 1½ cups of flour with the baking powder.

  7. Fold the sifted flour and baking powder into the batter.

  8. Color the batter slightly with melted chocolate and mix well.

Shape and bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto buttered baking sheets.

  2. Place a small buttered cracker on top of each spoonful.

  3. Bake until golden.

Finish and decorate

  1. Remove the crackers.

  2. Frost with chocolate icing.

  3. Place a chocolate cream or candy in the center.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, tenderizing the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, airy texture when beaten with butter.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the cakes to rise.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites and sifted flour. Stiff egg whites trap air that makes the cake light. Folding gently keeps that air in, while vigorous stirring would deflate the batter and leave a dense result.

“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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