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Dessert

Marble or Spiced Cake

A cake made with alternating light and dark batters, containing sugar, butter, sour cream, molasses, spices, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Marble or Spiced 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. 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.

Make the batters

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

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

  3. Add the sour cream or buttermilk and mix well.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour and baking soda, then gradually add to the creamed mixture.

  5. In a separate bowl, mix the brown sugar, molasses, sour cream, and butter for the dark batter.

  6. Add the baking soda, yolks of 8 eggs, and 1 whole egg to the dark batter and mix well.

Bake

  1. Grease a cake pan and pour in alternating layers of the light and dark batter.

  2. Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted 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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it sets.
Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and adds richness and tender texture.
Eggs
Add structure, richness and moisture, and help the batter set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream or buttermilk and molasses to lift the batter as it bakes.
Molasses
Gives the dark batter its colour, moisture and a deep, slightly acidic flavour.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and acidity that tenderises the crumb and activates the baking soda.

The step that matters

Alternating the light and dark batter layers. Pouring the two batters in loose, alternating layers keeps the marbled pattern distinct. Overmixing or stirring them together blends them into an even, uniform colour.

“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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