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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A moist chocolate cake made with sugar, butter, lard, sour milk, cocoa, water, baking soda, flour, baking powder, vanilla, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cocoa and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 357 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Mix the sugar and butter together until well combined.

  2. Add the sour milk and mix well.

  3. Dissolve the cocoa in the boiling water and add it to the mixture along with the baking soda.

  4. Combine all ingredients thoroughly.

  5. Sift the flour with the baking powder and add it to the mixture.

  6. Add vanilla to taste.

  7. Beat the eggs well and fold them into the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan and bake at 400°F (200°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Cocoa + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

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

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

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping bind and lift the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking to give the cake additional lift.
Butter and lard
Add fat for tenderness and a rich, moist crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep it moist and browned.

The step that matters

Dissolve the cocoa in the boiling water and add it with the baking soda. Hot water helps cocoa fully dissolve and release its flavor, giving a smooth batter. Baking soda needs the acidic sour milk already in the batter to react and lift the cake, so the batter should be mixed promptly once combined.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits about as well
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, vanilla, egg. 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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