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Dessert

Marble Cake

A cake made by layering plain and spiced batter to create a marbled effect.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Marble Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Prepare a pound cake batter and add the yeast.

  2. Take one-third of the batter and mix in the cinnamon, mace, cloves, and nutmeg.

  3. Grease a cake pan.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the plain batter and spiced batter alternately in the pan, finishing with the plain batter.

  2. Bake until done, as you would a pound cake.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Cake batter
Forms the structure and crumb of the cake.
Yeast
Helps the batter rise and gives the crumb a lighter texture.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the spiced batter.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the spiced batter.

The step that matters

Layering the batter. Alternating plain and spiced batter creates the marbled pattern. Spooning rather than pouring keeps the layers distinct, so the batters do not blend into an even color during baking.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cinnamon, clove, nutmeg):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, clove, nutmeg. 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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