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Dessert

Marble Cake

A layered cake made by alternating dark and light batters of flour, sugar, eggs, butter, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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 ↓

Marble 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.

Prepare

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the dark batter: combine brown sugar, molasses, sour cream, butter, flour, baking soda, yolks of 8 eggs, and 1 whole egg.

  3. In another bowl, prepare the light batter: mix white sugar, butter, buttermilk, whites of 3 eggs, cream of tartar, baking soda, and flour.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a greased two-pound mold, alternate layers of dark and light batter.

  2. Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Finish

  1. Let cool, then ice and decorate with chocolate drops.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites and yolks add structure and richness to the crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the protein structure that holds the cake's crumb together.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and a rich flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidic ingredients to release gas that lifts the batter.
Buttermilk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.
Cream of tartar
An acid that stabilizes egg whites and supports the rise.

The step that matters

Alternating the dark and light layers in the mold. The two batters differ in density and leavening, so pouring them in separate layers keeps the marbled pattern. Stirring them together blends the contrast away and can deflate the air in the egg whites.

“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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