Name: Marble Cake
Ingredients: one cup of white sugar; two teaspoons baking powder; one teaspoon of vanilla; half cups of sifted flour; two tablespoons cocoa; a cup of butter; a cup of sweet milk; a spoonful of each kind alter- nately; four eggs

Why it works: Vanilla and cocoa work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 357 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Marble Cake

Ingredients

Directions

White Part.— Four eggs, one cup of white sugar, half a cup of butter, half a cup of sweet milk, two teaspoons baking powder, one teaspoon of vanilla and two and one- half cups of sifted flour.
136 BETHANY UNION COOK BOOK
Dark Part. — Mix one-third of the mixture with two tablespoons cocoa, drop a spoonful of each kind alter- nately. Try to drop it so that the cake shall be well streaked through, giving it the appearance of marble.
Mrs. J. Niemann.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

1000Calories

29 gProtein

35 gFat

138 gCarbs

What these numbers assume: 7 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Chocolate	1 oz (28g) semisweet	155
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Vanilla	1 tsp extract (4ml)	12

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

By Chicago. Bethany union church. Woman's society. [from old catalog]. 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.

Vanilla + cocoatop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together357 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,187 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Cocoa + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together643 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vanilla, flour, butter, milk, egg):

Almondfits better
Chestnutfits better
Hazelnutfits about as well
Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vanilla, flour, butter, milk, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.