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Dessert

Chocolate Marble Cake

A moist chocolate and vanilla sponge with chocolate swirls baked in a pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the corn-starch, beaten egg yolks, sweet milk, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and vanilla; mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the batter.

Marble and bake

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

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

  3. Bake for 30–40 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks bind and enrich the batter, while whipped whites add lift and a light crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds fat for a tender, rich texture.
Sugar
Creamed with butter, it adds sweetness and helps create a light, fluffy structure.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda, aiding lift and a finer crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites hold air only if beaten until stiff; overmixing when folding deflates them, leading to a dense cake instead of a light one.

“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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