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Dessert

Marble Cake

A layered cake made with alternating white and brown batter, flavored with cinnamon, allspice, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

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 white batter

  1. Beat the egg whites in a bowl until stiff peaks form.

  2. In another bowl, cream together the white sugar and butter.

  3. Add the sour milk and mix well.

  4. Gradually add the sifted flour and baking soda to the mixture.

  5. Flavor to taste and set aside.

Make the dark batter

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and mix with brown sugar and butter.

  2. Add sour milk, sifted flour, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves.

Bake

  1. In a greased cake pan, alternate spoonfuls of the white and dark batter.

  2. Bake for 1 hour and 15 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the batter and give the cake an airy texture.
Egg yolks
Add richness, color and moisture to the dark batter.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release gas that helps the cake rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and helps keep the crumb tender.

The step that matters

Alternating the white and dark batter in the pan. Placing spoonfuls of each batter side by side, rather than stirring them together, keeps the two colors separate so the marbled pattern forms during baking. Overmixing blends them into an even color.

Swap the clove

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

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

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