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Dessert

Dark Part of Marble Cake

A marble cake made with butter, brown sugar, molasses, sour milk, egg yolks, flour, baking soda, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Dark Part of 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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. Beat together the butter and brown sugar until creamy.

  2. Add the molasses, sour milk, and egg yolks; mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking soda, then add to the wet mixture.

  4. Stir in the cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Marble and bake

  1. In a greased pan, alternate spoonfuls of white and dark batter until all is used.

  2. Bake until a toothpick inserted 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Butter
Adds fat that gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep it moist.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter into a smooth structure.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that lifts the cake.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tenderness.

The step that matters

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. As the batter heats, its proteins set and its starches gelatinize to form the crumb. Pulling the cake too early leaves a wet, sunken center, while baking too long dries it out.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, molasses, milk, egg, flour, cinnamon. 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.

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