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Dessert

Chocolate Coffee Cake

A moist cake made with butter, sugar, egg, milk, coffee, chocolate, flour, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Coffee and chocolate 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 ↓

Chocolate Coffee 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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  2. Add the egg and stir slightly.

  3. Mix in the milk and the grated chocolate that has been dissolved in the coffee.

  4. Add the flour and baking powder last, stirring the mixture thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a loaf or flat pan and bake until done.

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. Coffee + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Butter
Creams with sugar to add tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the butter cream to a light texture.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Grated chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and depth to the cake.

The step that matters

Add the flour and baking powder last, stirring the mixture thoroughly. Mixing flour develops gluten, which gives structure. Stirring thoroughly ensures the baking powder is evenly distributed so the cake rises uniformly, while overmixing after the flour is added can make the crumb tough.

“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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