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Dessert

Marbled Cake

A layered cake made with white and brown sugar mixtures, butter, milk, flour, egg whites, egg yolks, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Marbled 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batters

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the white sugar and ½ cup butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, and 2 ½ cups flour; mix thoroughly.

  4. In another bowl, cream together the brown sugar and ½ cup butter.

  5. Stir in the sour milk, baking soda, 2 ½ cups flour, and egg yolks.

  6. Add the spices: cloves, allspice, cinnamon, and nutmeg; mix well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fold the egg whites into the light mixture.

  2. Layer the light and dark mixtures in a greased cake pan, swirling them together.

  3. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick 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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Egg whites
Whipped into the light batter to add lift and an airy crumb.
Butter
Creams with sugar to add tenderness and richness to the crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Brown sugar
Adds moisture and molasses flavor to the dark batter and helps it brown.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and cream of tartar to make the cake rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda for lift and adds tenderness to the dark batter.

The step that matters

Fold the egg whites gently. Egg whites hold air that gives the light batter its rise. Stirring them vigorously deflates the foam, leading to a dense cake.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, cream, flour, egg, allspice):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, cream, flour, egg, allspice. 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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