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Dessert

Jelly or Chocolate Cake

A cake made with a butter‑sugar batter, baked in jelly tins, and layered with a chocolate glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla 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 ↓

Jelly or 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.

Make the cake batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

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

  3. Add the eggs and milk, mixing well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

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

Bake the cake

  1. Pour the batter into jelly tins and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the chocolate filling

  1. For the chocolate, combine the grated chocolate, ½ cup milk, and ½ cup sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Heat until just boiling, then add the corn‑starch and stir until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla.

Assemble

  1. Once the cake is cool, spread the chocolate mixture between the layers and dust the top with powdered sugar.

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

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 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
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness through fat coating the flour.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps give it a tender, browned crumb.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to help the cake rise.
Corn-starch
Thickens the chocolate mixture into a spreadable filling.

The step that matters

Heat the chocolate filling until thickened. Cornstarch thickens only when the mixture reaches a boil and is stirred; stopping early leaves the filling runny, while overcooking can make it stiff or gummy.

“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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