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Dessert

Marbled Chocolate Cake

A cake with layers of white batter and chocolate batter, baked in a single pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Marbled Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the milk and mix well.

  4. Sift the flour and baking powder, then mix until combined.

  5. Gently fold in the egg whites.

Make the marbled cake

  1. Take 1 cup of the batter and mix in the grated chocolate and a little milk to wet it, adding vanilla for flavor.

  2. In a cake pan, pour a layer of the white batter, then drop spoonfuls of the chocolate batter in spots.

  3. Pour the remaining white batter over the top and bake until done.

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 the cake a light, tender crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes airy.
Egg whites
Folded in to add lift and structure to the batter.
Grated chocolate
Supplies the chocolate flavor and the dark swirls in the marbled batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Folding gently, rather than stirring hard, keeps that air in the batter so the cake stays light instead of 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.

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