Chocolate cake

the baked cake

Baked cake flavored with chocolate

Chocolate cake or chocolate gâteau (from ) is a cake flavored with melted chocolate, cocoa powder, or both. It can also have other ingredients such as fudge, vanilla creme, and other sweeteners.

The history of chocolate cake goes back to the 17th century, when cocoa powder from the Americas was added to traditional cake recipes. In 1828, Coenraad van Houten of the Netherlands developed a mechanical method for extracting the fat from cacao liquor, resulting in cacao butter and the partly defatted cacao, a compacted mass of solids that could be sold as "rock cacao" or ground into powder. The Duff Company of Pittsburgh, a molasses manufacturer, introduced "Devil's food" chocolate cake mixes in the mid 1930s, but production was put on hold during World War II. After the war, the Pilsbury company was in 1948 the first to sell a chocolate cake mix, and in 1951 the "Three Star Surprise" mix from Duncan Hines (so called because a white, yellow or chocolate cake could be made from the same mix) swept the market. "Chocolate decadence" cakes were popular in the United States 1980s. In the 1990s, single serving molten chocolate cakes with liquid chocolate centers and infused chocolates with exotic flavors such as tea, curry, red pepper, passion fruit, and champagne were popular. Chocolate lounges and artisanal chocolate makers were popular in the 2000s. Rich, all but flourless chocolate cakes are "now standard in the modern pâtisserie", according to Maricel Presilla's The New Taste of Chocolate in 2001.