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Dessert

Chocolate Cake

A chocolate cake made with grated chocolate, sugar, flour, butter, eggs, and baking soda, baked at 350°F for 30 minutes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chocolate Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Mix the grated chocolate, flour, and baking soda into the butter and sugar mixture.

  3. Add the egg yolks one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

Fold and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gently fold the beaten whites into the batter.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pan lined with buttered parchment paper.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chocolate + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,543 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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
Egg whites trapped by beating add lift, and yolks add richness and structure to the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to produce gas, helping the cake rise and turn lighter.
Flour
Its proteins set during baking, giving the cake its structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, and adds fat for tenderness and flavour.
Granulated sugar
Creamed with butter to build a light texture and adds sweetness and browning.
Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and adds richness to the batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stirring vigorously deflates the foam trapped in the whites, which is what lifts the cake. Fold gently, so the batter keeps its air and rises evenly in the oven.

“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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