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Dessert

Marble Cake

A cake with swirled chocolate and vanilla batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cocoa and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 357 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. 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 the batter

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

  2. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

  4. Sift the baking soda and cream of tartar with the flour.

  5. Mix the milk into the butter mixture, then gently stir in the flour.

Divide and swirl

  1. Pour half of the batter into a well‑buttered 7 or 8‑inch round cake tin.

  2. Dissolve the cocoa in cold water and stir it into one half of the remaining batter, adding vanilla extract.

  3. Color the other half with carmine or cochineal and flavor with lemon essence.

  4. Drop large spoonfuls of the colored batters onto the plain batter in the tin and swirl lightly with a spoon.

Bake

  1. Bake for 30 to 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. Cocoa + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the cake's main structure once its starches set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release gas that makes the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that activates the baking soda, helping the cake rise.
Cocoa
Adds chocolate flavor and color to the darker swirled portion of the batter.

The step that matters

Swirl lightly with a spoon. Overmixing the swirl blends the colored batters into the plain batter, losing the marbled pattern and making the cake an even color. Gentle swirling keeps the layers distinct while the cake bakes.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, cream, flour, milk, vanilla. 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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