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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Chocolate Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Beat the egg whites and yolks separately, then combine them.

  3. Add the sugar and melted butter to the egg mixture and mix well.

  4. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together, then gradually add to the egg mixture.

  5. Add enough milk to create a moderately stiff batter.

Bake and fill

  1. Divide the batter between two layer cake tins and bake until done.

  2. For the filling, melt the chocolate in boiling water on the stove.

  3. Stir in icing sugar until it thickens into a paste.

  4. Spread the filling between the warm cake layers and ice the top.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

  5. Flour + milktop 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
Whipped and combined to give the cake its structure and rich, airy crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise and become light.
White sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and keep a tender crumb.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness, moisture and a tender texture.
Unsweetened chocolate
Supplies the chocolate flavour and, with icing sugar, forms the filling paste.

The step that matters

Sifting and gradually adding the flour mixture. Adding dry ingredients gradually keeps the batter smooth and prevents lumps. Overmixing once flour is in can develop gluten, making the cake tough and dense.

“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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