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Cocoa-itut Cake

A cake made with butter, sugar, milk, baking soda, grated coconut, nutmeg, egg whites and sifted flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Cocoa-itut Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cream together the butter and sugar in a large bowl.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add it to the mixture.

  4. Stir in the grated cocoa-nut and nutmeg.

  5. Add the egg whites and sifted flour, mixing until just combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared baking pan and bake immediately.

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. Tea + cocoatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-ethyl-3,6-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cocoatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Tea + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together738 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and gives the cake a tender crumb and rich flavor.
White sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps hold air when creamed with butter, aiding a light texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the milk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Eggs
Egg whites add structure and help bind the batter as it sets in the oven.
Sifted flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.

The step that matters

Bake immediately after mixing. Baking soda starts reacting as soon as it meets the milk and the batter's acid-free mix, so gas escapes if the batter waits. Baking right away keeps the rise strong.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, tea, milk, nutmeg, egg, flour):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, tea, milk, nutmeg, egg, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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