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Dessert

Marble Cake

A layered cake made by alternating plain and spiced batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Marble Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare a pound cake batter.

  2. Add one spoonful of yeast to the batter.

Marble and bake

  1. Take one-third of the batter and mix in the cinnamon, mace, cloves, and nutmeg.

  2. In a pan, layer the plain batter, then the spiced batter, finishing with the plain batter.

  3. Bake until beautifully layered.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Cake batter
Forms the structure and tender crumb of the cake.
Ground cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma to the spiced portion of the batter.
Ground mace
Adds a delicate, warm aroma to the spiced portion of the batter.
Ground cloves
Adds a strong, warm aroma to the spiced portion of the batter.
Ground nutmeg
Adds a warm, sweet aroma to the spiced portion of the batter.

The step that matters

Layering the batters. Spooning the plain and spiced batters into the pan gently keeps them in distinct layers. Heavy stirring or pouring blends the two colours and flavours together, so the marbled pattern is lost during baking.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cinnamon, clove, nutmeg):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, clove, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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