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Dessert

Marble Cake

A cake made by layering dark and light batters and baking until done.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 26 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Marble Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

Make the batters

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, butter, brown sugar, molasses, sour milk, baking soda, flour, and spices until combined.

  2. If using, fold in the raisins or currants.

  3. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine cornstarch, white sugar, sweet milk, butter, flour, and baking powder until smooth.

Bake and serve

  1. Layer spoonfuls of the dark and light mixtures in a baking pan.

  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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 light batter and give it an airy structure.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in both the dark and light batters.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and deepens the color and flavor of the dark batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that helps the dark batter rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda for lift and adds tenderness.

The step that matters

Layering the dark and light mixtures. Spooning the two batters in loosely, rather than stirring them together, keeps the marbled pattern. Overmixing blends the batters into an even color and loses the swirl.

Swap the raisin

The recipe marks raisin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, sugar, molasses, milk, flour, cinnamon):

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Blueberryfits less well

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