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Baking

Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake with a chocolate filling, made with eggs, sugar, butter, flour, baking powder, salt, milk, chocolate, boiling water, 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.

Prepare 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.

  4. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together, then gradually mix into the egg mixture.

  5. Add milk until the batter is moderately stiff.

Bake and fill

  1. Divide the batter into two layer cake tins and bake.

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

  3. Stir in icing sugar until it forms a thick paste.

  4. Spread the filling between the hot layers and ice the top of the cake.

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 structure and lift in the batter.
Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the layers rise and become light.
White sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and keep its tender texture.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Unsweetened chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and, melted and thickened, the filling.

The step that matters

Spread the filling between the hot layers. Spreading filling on warm layers can cause it to slide or soak in unevenly, so the cake may not set cleanly. Icing sugar thickens the melted chocolate so it holds its shape as it cools.

“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.

More chocolate cake recipes

Filling 18French 14Marbled 13Black 11Dark 10Marble 7 See all 565 →

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