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Dessert

Devil Cake

A chocolate cake made with egg yolks, sugar, butter, milk, flour, baking soda, and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Devil Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Combine egg yolks, ¼ cup milk, and melted chocolate in a saucepan. Cook over low heat until smooth.

  2. Remove from heat and add the remaining ingredients, mixing well.

Bake

  1. Pour batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until a toothpick inserted in the center 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.

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. 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

Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter, giving the cake structure and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the cake moist and tender.
Baker's chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and deep color of the cake.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to produce gas, helping the cake rise and lighten.
Butter
Adds fat for moisture, tenderness and richness in the crumb.

The step that matters

Cooking the chocolate, egg yolk and milk mixture. Cooking over low heat gently thickens the egg yolks and smooths the melted chocolate without scrambling the eggs. Heating too fast can curdle the yolks, leaving lumps that will not blend into the batter.

“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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