Skip to main content
Dessert

Marble or Spiced Cake

A cake with alternating light and dark batters, flavored with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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.

Prepare

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

Make the batters

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

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

  3. Gradually add the flour and baking soda, mixing until combined.

  4. In a separate bowl, cream together the brown sugar and butter.

  5. Add the molasses and sour cream, and mix well.

  6. Incorporate the yolks of 8 eggs and 1 whole egg into the brown mixture.

  7. Combine the mixed spices into the dark batter.

Bake

  1. In a greased pan, layer the light and dark batter alternately.

  2. Bake for about 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. 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
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and a rich flavor.
Eggs
Add structure, richness, and help bind the batter.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep, sweet flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream to release gas that lifts the batter.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and tenderness, and its acidity activates the baking soda.

The step that matters

Gradually add the flour and baking soda, mixing until combined.. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form. Overmixing builds too much gluten, which makes the cake tough and dense, so mix only until the flour is just combined.

“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.

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesMolasses Sponge CakeMolasses Sponge Cake9 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes