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Dessert

Chocolate Caramel Cake

A chocolate cake layered with caramel and frosted with a chocolate‑vanilla icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Chocolate Caramel 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.

Make the cake

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

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

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture, alternating with the milk.

  6. Pour the batter into jelly tins and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the caramel

  1. For the caramel, combine the brown sugar, cake chocolate, and milk or water in a saucepan.

  2. Add butter and boil for 20 minutes or until thick enough.

  3. Spread the caramel between the layers of cake while warm.

Make the frosting

  1. For the frosting, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gradually add powdered sugar, vanilla, and grated chocolate, mixing until smooth.

  3. Frost the top of the cake with the prepared 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

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

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

Eggs
Add structure and richness to the batter as they set during baking.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Butter
Adds tenderness and flavor to the cake by coating the flour and enriching the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while creaming aerates the batter.
Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks to give the frosting its airy, light volume.

The step that matters

Boil the caramel until thick. Sugar and milk must cook long enough to reach a thick, spreadable consistency. Undercooked caramel stays runny and soaks into the layers, while overcooked caramel can turn grainy or hard once it cools.

“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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