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Christmas Chocolate Town Cake

"This recipe was on a Christmas ornament I received years ago. It's an excellent chocolate cake. Frost with your favorite chocolate frosting."

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 10 ingredients
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Christmas Chocolate Town Cake

Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 3,721 recipes mention both. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Christmas Chocolate Town Cake

2 - 9 inch round pans
Prep20 min
Cook40 min

Ingredients

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cocoa powder + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Vanilla + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla share little aroma chemistry, yet 35,032 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cocoa powder, sugar, egg, flour, buttermilk):

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against cocoa powder, sugar, egg, flour, buttermilk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).