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Dessert

Marble Cake

A cake made by layering and swirling light and dark batter mixtures to create a marbled appearance.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and sorghum share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 99 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Marble Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°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 the batters

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff.

  3. In another bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Add the milk, flour, baking powder, and flavoring to the butter mixture, mixing well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the egg yolks, butter, sorghum molasses, milk, flour, baking powder, and mixed spices.

Marble and bake

  1. Layer the light and dark mixtures in a greased cake pan.

  2. Swirl with a knife to create a marbled effect.

  3. Bake for 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. Flour + sorghumtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together99 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. 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Egg whites
Whipped until stiff to trap air, giving the cake a light, airy crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to add richness and a tender texture.
Sugar
Creamed with butter to add sweetness and help hold air in the batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises.
Sorghum molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep sweet flavor to the dark batter.

The step that matters

Swirling the batters. Swirling too much blends the light and dark batters into a uniform color instead of distinct marbling. Use only a few gentle passes with a knife so the two batters stay separate in the pan.

“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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