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Dessert

Fudge Cake

A chocolate cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sour milk, vanilla, and melted chocolate.

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

Fudge Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter until soft and creamy.

  2. Add the brown sugar and cream until very light and frothy.

  3. Add the egg yolks and cream for 3 minutes.

  4. Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt together 3 times.

  5. Add 5 tablespoons of the sifted ingredients to the mixture and cream well.

  6. Alternately add the remaining dry ingredients and sour milk to the creamed mixture.

  7. Beat hard for 4 to 5 minutes after all ingredients are added.

  8. Fold in the vanilla, melted chocolate, and stiffly beaten egg whites carefully. Do not beat after adding the egg whites.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake in greased and floured layer cake pans.

  2. Set the layers together with soft chocolate icing.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Eggs
Egg whites add lift and structure, while yolks add richness and moisture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and helps give a tender crumb.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a softer texture, and helps the batter cream to a light base.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and traps air when creamed.

The step that matters

Do not beat after adding the egg whites. Stiffly beaten egg whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Vigorous beating after folding them in deflates that foam and leaves a denser, tougher cake.

“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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