Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Marble Cake

A chocolate marble loaf made with butter, sugar, milk, flour, eggs, baking soda, cream of tartar, powdered sugar, grated chocolate, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Chocolate Marble Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cream together the butter and sugar.

  3. Add the unbeaten yolks of the eggs.

  4. Mix in the milk and flour alternately.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

Marble and bake

  1. Take out 1 cup of the batter and mix in the powdered sugar, grated chocolate, and vanilla.

  2. Pour the yellow batter into a loaf pan.

  3. Drop in some dark batter.

  4. Swirl with a spoon.

  5. Cover with the remaining yellow batter.

  6. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool and finish

  1. Cool the cake.

  2. Frost the bottom of the cake once cool.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Yolks add richness and structure, while whipped whites lighten the batter and help it rise.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while keeping it tender.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a soft, tender crumb.
Grated chocolate
Gives the dark batter its flavor and the marbled color.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites. Whites hold air that lifts the batter. Folding gently keeps that air in, while stirring hard would deflate it and make the cake dense.

“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.

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipes