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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake made with chocolate, butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, vanilla, and frosted with boiled icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Dissolve the chocolate in boiling water.

  2. Cream the butter and gradually add the sugar.

  3. Beat in the egg yolks thoroughly.

  4. Add the dissolved chocolate, cream or milk, flour, baking powder, and vanilla.

  5. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth and gently fold them into the mixture.

Bake and frost

  1. Pour the batter into a loaf pan or three layer cake pans.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.

  3. Frost with boiled icing flavored with chocolate.

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. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the cake a tender crumb.
Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsify the batter, helping it bind smoothly.
Egg whites
Whipped to a stiff froth, they add air that helps the cake rise and stay light.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, causing the cake to rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and keep moisture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites whipped to a stiff froth trap air that gives lift. Stirring them in vigorously knocks that air out, leaving a denser cake, so fold gently with a spatula.

“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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