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Dessert

Two Egg Cake

A simple cake made with sugar, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, eggs, milk, butter, and a chocolate-vanilla coffee filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and coffee are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,497 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells buttery, creamy. The science ↓

Two Egg 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the cake

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

  2. In a bowl, mix sugar, flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

  3. In another bowl, break the eggs and add milk to measure ½ cup.

  4. Add the eggs and milk mixture to the dry ingredients.

  5. Stir in melted butter and mix until smooth.

  6. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Make the filling and finish

  1. For the filling, combine confectioners' sugar, melted chocolate, butter, coffee, and vanilla in a bowl.

  2. Once the cake is cool, spread the filling on 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. Chocolate + coffeetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).

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

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Add structure and richness to the batter as they set during baking.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set with heat.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, reacting with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the cake and the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and keep moisture.

The step that matters

Bake the cake until just set. Baking soda and cream of tartar start producing gas as soon as they are wet, so the batter should go into the oven promptly. Overbaking dries the crumb, while underbaking can cause it to sink 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.

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