Skip to main content
Dessert

Marble Cakk

A cake made by baking alternating white and dark batters, often with nuts, raisins, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Landmarks Club · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 52 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Marble Cakk

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batters

  1. Whisk together half cup butter, one and a half cups sugar, half cup milk, three cups flour, two teaspoons baking powder, and the whites of four eggs to make the white batter.

  2. Whisk together half cup butter, one and a half cups brown sugar, half cup molasses, half cup sweet milk, three cups flour, two teaspoons cloves, two teaspoons cinnamon, one tablespoon grated chocolate, yolks of four eggs, one white, and two teaspoons baking powder to make the dark batter.

Bake

  1. Bake the batter in a loaf pan for one hour.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

1254Calories
32 gProtein
44 gFat
186 gCarbs

Counts 12 of 15 ingredients. The other 3 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 12 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Chocolate1 oz (28g) semisweet155
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Orange1 medium (131g)62
Molasses1 tbsp (20g)58
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Walnut1 walnut half (4g)26
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Macenot in our table0
Waternot in our table0
Cakenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Landmarks Club. 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. See the original page.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Clove + raisintop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps keep the crumb soft and moist.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, with the whites helping the cake set and rise.
Molasses
Darkens the batter and adds deep, slightly bitter sweetness to the dark portion.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, milk, flour, molasses, chocolate, raisin):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, flour, molasses, chocolate, raisin. 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.

More marble cake recipes

Chocolate 23 See all 221 →

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesChocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipes