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Dessert

One-egg Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake made with butter, milk, sugar, cocoa, flour, spices, and one egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

One-egg Chocolate 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 sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the sweet milk and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cocoa (if using), baking soda, cream of tartar, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and nutmeg.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.

  6. Pour the batter into a greased baking sheet.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  2. Let cool and top with grated chocolate icing.

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. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cocoa + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-ethyl-3,6-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavour.
Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a light texture when creamed with butter.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidic ingredients to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidic ingredient that stabilises rising and works with baking soda for lift.
Cocoa
Provides chocolate flavour and colour to the cake.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form. Overmixing toughens the batter and can make the cake dense, so stir only until no dry flour streaks remain.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, sugar, chocolate, cinnamon, flour, cream):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Hazelnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, sugar, chocolate, cinnamon, flour, cream. 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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