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Dessert

Black and White Cake

A two-part cake with a white batter and a black batter made with brown sugar and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 ↓

Black and White 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.

Make the white batter

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

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the sweet milk and egg whites, mixing well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cornstarch, and baking powder.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until smooth.

Make the black batter

  1. For the black part, cream the brown sugar and butter.

  2. Mix in the sour milk and baking soda.

  3. Add the flour, raisins, nuts, egg yolks, molasses, and spices, mixing until combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Layer the black and white mixtures in a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 30-35 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas, helping the dark batter rise.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the white batter, giving it lift and an open texture.
Egg whites
Trap air and add structure, giving the white layer a light, set crumb.
Egg yolks
Add richness, moisture and emulsifying fat for a tender crumb.
Molasses
Adds moisture, depth of flavor and the dark color of the black layer.

The step that matters

Layering the black and white mixtures. The two batters have different densities and rise at different rates. Pouring them in gently, without heavy mixing, keeps the layers distinct instead of blending into an even grey cake.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Nutsthe original

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