Chocolate Cake Lab357 recipes
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Chocolate cake around the world

356 chocolate cake recipes in 6 languages: English 246, Portuguese 41, Italian 26, German 19, French 14 and Dutch 10. Each is reduced to grams per 100 g of flour, the same as everywhere in the lab, so a French page and an American one line up. English, the largest group, is the one the others are compared with.

The language is the page's, not the cook's country: a French page may be from Quebec, a Portuguese one from Brazil, a Dutch one from Belgium. Each language's lines are read in its own words and units, and a recipe that gives “a pinch” of salt counts a pinch.

Also in the lab, too few to compare (under 8 recipes): Spanish 1.

Where they part from English

The clearest differences for each language, medians per 100 g of flour. Only differences large enough to matter and unlikely to be chance are listed (how below).

  • Portuguese 41 recipesPortuguese recipes use 32% less liquid than English ones (98% against 145% of the flour weight); most use no cocoa (63%, against 6% of English recipes); most add chocolate (58%, against 27%).
  • German 19 recipesGerman recipes use 46% less sugar than English ones (85% against 160% of the flour weight), 28% less liquid (103% against 145%) and under a third as much salt (0.1% against 1.5%).
  • Dutch 10 recipesMost Dutch recipes add chocolate (80%, against 27% of English recipes).
  • Italian 26 recipesItalian recipes use 43% less sugar than English ones (90% against 160% of the flour weight); most use no salt (61%, against 16% of English recipes).
  • French 14 recipesFrench recipes use under a third as much salt as English ones (0.2% against 1.5% of the flour weight); most add chocolate (71%, against 27% of English recipes).

Every ingredient, language by language

Grams per 100 g of flour. One row a language, largest first.

middle half, and the median (the number at right; when most use none, the share that uses any)middle half of every recipesmall number after a name: recipes

Cocoa
Chocolate
Sugar
Fat
Egg
Liquid
Leavening
Salt

The typical cake in each language

The median of each language's recipes for every ingredient, scaled to 250 g of flour. No single recipe is exactly this. Under each, the recipe nearest its language's medians.

The medians and middle halves as a table
Median and middle half per 100 g of flour, by language
LanguageCocoaChocolateSugarFatEggLiquidLeaveningSalt
English 24626%15% to 31%0%0% to 27%160%117% to 180%66%48% to 91%46%39% to 60%145%124% to 192%4.8%3.4% to 6.6%1.5%0.8% to 2.3%
Portuguese 410%0% to 15%27%0% to 68%120%95% to 160%56%40% to 80%59%40% to 80%98%78% to 135%4.9%3.7% to 5.8%0%0% to 0%
Italian 2622%14% to 26%13%0% to 57%90%82% to 118%51%44% to 66%49%0% to 58%124%103% to 150%5.4%3.8% to 7.5%0%0% to 0.2%
German 1917%9.1% to 26%0%0% to 35%85%72% to 110%62%52% to 88%58%42% to 82%103%83% to 135%5%4.2% to 6.2%0.1%0% to 1.1%
French 1415%1.4% to 28%44%8.3% to 84%114%100% to 156%56%40% to 124%48%0% to 74%129%88% to 189%4.3%3.4% to 5.3%0.2%0% to 0.8%
Dutch 1019%12% to 26%53%35% to 90%140%110% to 205%85%74% to 100%50%44% to 65%128%105% to 190%4.8%3.6% to 5.2%0.05%0% to 0.2%

How the comparison works

A language gets a row with at least 8 recipes. Each is compared with the English recipes on every ingredient, and a difference is listed only when it clears two bars: the medians sit at least a third of the middle half of all recipes apart (about half a standard deviation, a medium effect), and a rank test puts the gap at 3 standard errors or more, so a language with few recipes needs a large difference. For an ingredient many recipes skip, the share using none counts too: at least 25 points apart, at the same 3 standard errors.

Every ingredient is tested for every language, a few dozen tests per lab, which is why the bar is higher than the usual two standard errors. Salt is listed last when it differs: many recipes give it as a pinch or leave it to taste. Shares and “more than” percentages are rounded down, so none is an overstatement.

These are what recipe writers in each language do, not rules of each country's cooking. A language with 8 to 20 recipes may come mostly from a few sites; each recipe page names its source.