Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Loaf Cake

A moist chocolate loaf cake made with grated chocolate, milk, eggs, butter, sugar, baking soda, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Chocolate Loaf Cake

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Chocolate Loaf 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. Mix the grated chocolate with the milk and the yolk of one egg in a saucepan over low heat until melted and smooth.

  2. Remove from heat and let cool.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the remaining egg whites until stiff.

  2. In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Add the melted chocolate mixture and baking soda dissolved in a little water to the creamed mixture.

  4. Gradually add flour until the batter is smooth and pourable.

  5. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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
Yolk enriches the chocolate mixture while whipped whites add lift and a light crumb.
Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and adds fat for a tender texture.
Sugar
Creams with butter for structure and adds sweetness and browning.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Chocolate
Adds the main flavor and deep color to the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when whipped stiff; stirring them in vigorously knocks out that air, so fold gently with a spatula to keep the batter light and well risen.

“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.

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipesChocolate Drop CookiesChocolate Drop Cookies50 recipes