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Dessert

Dark Part

A layered cake with alternating white and dark batter, lemon cream, lemon jelly, marshmallow, and caramel layers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By New Orleans. Parker Memorial M. E. church, South. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 39 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 81,222 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Make the dark batter

  1. Combine yolks of 7 eggs, 1 cup molasses, 2 cups brown sugar, 1 cup butter, 1 cup sweet milk, 5 cups flour, 1 tablespoon Dixie baking powder, 1 tablespoon spices except ginger, and 1 teaspoon ginger.

  2. Grease a cake pan.

  3. Pour a layer of the white batter, then a layer of the dark batter, and so on until the pan is filled.

  4. Bake for 1 hour.

Make the white layers and custard filling

  1. Combine 1 cup butter, 2 cups sugar, 3 cups flour, 4 eggs, and 2 teaspoons Dixie baking powder; bake in 4 layers.

  2. Beat 2 eggs and 1 cup sugar very light.

  3. Boil 2 cups sweet milk.

  4. When the milk boils, stir in 7 spoonfuls cornstarch wet in cold milk.

  5. Stir in the eggs and sugar, let cook a moment, pour into a dish, flavor with grated rind and juice of 2 lemons, and spread between layers of cake.

Make the lemon filling and cake layers

  1. Combine juice of two lemons, grated rind of one lemon, 1 cup sugar, 1 egg, half cup water, 1 tablespoon butter, and 1 tablespoon flour mixed with a little water.

  2. Cook over boiling water until thickened.

  3. Place between layers of cake.

  4. Combine 1 cup butter, 2 cups sugar, 3 cups flour, 2 teaspoons Dixie baking powder, 1 cup sweet milk, whites of 6 eggs, cream, butter, and sugar; add milk and flour; lastly add eggs beaten stiff in three layers.

Make the marshmallow frosting

  1. Combine 2 cups granulated sugar and a cup boiling water, let boil.

  2. Beat whites of 2 eggs stiff.

  3. Put 16 marshmallows in a slow oven to heat.

  4. When the syrup threads when poured from a spoon, pour over the eggs and beat well.

  5. Add marshmallows, beat smooth, and spread.

Make the pound cake layers

  1. Combine J of a pound butter, whites of 10 eggs, 3 cups granulated sugar, % cup water, 1 quart unsifted flour, and 1 teaspoon Dixie baking powder.

  2. Bake in jelly cake pans.

By New Orleans. Parker Memorial M. E. church, South. [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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Milk + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together81,222 recipes

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

  2. Ginger + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Molasses + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Molasses + gingertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + buttertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together122,858 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely 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

Molasses
Adds dark color and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness to the dark batter.
Eggs
Provide structure and richness, and the beaten whites lighten the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich crumb.
Flour
Builds the cake's structure as it sets in the oven.
Dixie baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the layers rise and become light.
Cornstarch
Thickens the custard filling as it boils.

The step that matters

Stir the cornstarch into boiling milk and cook the filling. Cornstarch thickens only when it is heated in liquid, so it must be added to boiling milk and cooked for a moment; otherwise the filling stays thin or can become lumpy.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

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

  1. Vanillabetter flavor fit
  2. Raisinbetter flavor fit
  3. Figabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, milk, flour, ginger, butter, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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