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Dessert

Chocolate Marble Cake

A moist chocolate marble cake made with butter, sugar, flour, corn starch, baking soda, cream of tartar, sweet milk, eggs, vanilla, and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) and grease a cake pan.

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

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

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, corn starch, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, alternating with the sweet milk.

  6. Stir in the vanilla extract.

Marble and bake

  1. Take out 1 cup of the batter and mix in the grated chocolate.

  2. Drop the chocolate batter alternately with the plain batter into the greased pan.

  3. Swirl gently with a knife to create a marbled effect.

  4. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter set around the baked crumb.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
Cream of tartar
Acidic ingredient that reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Grated chocolate
Mixed into part of the batter to create the dark marbled streaks and chocolate flavor.

The step that matters

Swirl gently with a knife. Over-swirling blends the chocolate batter into the plain batter, erasing the marble pattern and turning the cake an even brown. A few slow passes keep the two batters in distinct streaks.

“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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