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Dessert

Devil Food Cake

A chocolate cake with a creamy chocolate mixture and a butter-sugar batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk 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 ↓

Devil Food 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 chocolate mixture

  1. In a double boiler, mix the egg yolk, cold water, ½ cup sugar, and ¼ cake of chocolate.

  2. Cook the mixture until thickened.

  3. Add 2 teaspoons vanilla and set aside.

Make the batter

  1. Cream 1 cup sugar with ⅔ cup butter until light and fluffy.

  2. Add 2 beaten eggs to the butter mixture.

  3. Add ½ cup sour milk mixed with 1 teaspoon baking soda to the butter mixture.

  4. Gradually stir in 2 cups flour until well combined.

  5. Incorporate the chocolate mixture into the batter.

  6. Mix the batter well.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 45 minutes.

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. Vanilla + milktop 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness, and helps trap air when creamed with sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy texture when creamed.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sour milk
Adds acidity that reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lightens the batter.

The step that matters

Cream the sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Beating sugar into butter traps air bubbles that expand in the oven, giving the cake lift and a fine crumb. Under-creaming leaves a dense 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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