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Dessert

Marbled Chocolate Cake

A cake with alternating layers of white and chocolate batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Marbled Chocolate 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.

Make the batter

  1. Make a batter as for white cake.

  2. Remove 1 cup of the batter and mix in 5 tablespoons of grated chocolate.

  3. Moisten the chocolate batter with milk and flavor with vanilla.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour a layer of the white batter into the baking pan.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the chocolate batter in spots on top of the white batter.

  3. Spread the remaining white batter over the chocolate batter.

  4. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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

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

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Milk + buttertop 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. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

Vanilla and sugar 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
Adds fat and tenderness, giving the cake a rich crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay moist.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and color in the marbled batter.

The step that matters

Spooning the chocolate batter onto the white batter. Dropping the chocolate batter in spots and then spreading the white batter over it creates the marbling. Spreading too vigorously blends the two batters into an even color, so the marbled pattern is lost.

“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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