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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake layered with a boiled sugar and milk filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cake

  1. Melt the chocolate and mix it with ½ cup of milk; let it cool.

  2. Cream the sugar and butter together.

  3. Add the yolks of the eggs, then the beaten egg whites, and the remaining ½ cup of milk.

  4. Mix in the flour and baking powder, then add the cooled chocolate mixture.

  5. Bake in three layers.

Make and assemble the filling

  1. For the filling, boil 1 cup of sugar, ⅓ cup of milk, and 1 tablespoon of butter for 5 minutes.

  2. Beat the filling until cool, then add 1 teaspoon of vanilla.

  3. Spread the filling between the layers of cake.

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. Milk + buttertop 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. Butter + flourtop 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
Whites trap air for lift and yolks add richness and structure to the crumb.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the cake its structure.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the layers rise and become light.
Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and adds tenderness and richness.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps tenderize the crumb while creaming aerates the batter.
Sweet chocolate
Provides chocolate flavour and deep colour to the batter.

The step that matters

Adding the cooled chocolate mixture. If the chocolate is still hot when added, it can cause the butter to melt out of the creamed batter and weaken the air structure, so letting it cool first keeps the batter stable and the layers 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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