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Dessert

Devil Cake

A chocolate cake made with butter, brown sugar, sour milk, eggs, baking soda, chocolate, flour, and iced with powdered sugar and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Devil 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

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

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

  3. Add the sour milk and the beaten yolks of the eggs, mixing well.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in a small amount of water and add it to the mixture.

  5. Stir in the melted chocolate and flour until combined.

  6. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites gently.

Bake and ice

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 30-35 minutes.

  2. For the icing, mix powdered sugar with sweet cream until smooth and spread over the cooled 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

Eggs
Yolks add richness and emulsify the batter, while whipped whites lighten its crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Cake chocolate
Adds deep flavour and moisture, and its color contributes to the dark crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture and a caramel note, and helps tenderize the crumb.

The step that matters

Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites gently. Egg white foam holds the air that lifts the batter. Vigorous stirring knocks that air out, leaving a dense, flat cake.

“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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