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Dessert

Marble Cake

A layered cake made with alternating dark and white batter mixtures baked until done.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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 dark batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together brown sugar and ½ cup butter.

  2. Add sour milk, molasses, and yolks of 4 eggs; mix well.

Make the white batter

  1. In another bowl, cream together white sugar and ½ cup butter.

  2. Add milk, whites of 4 eggs, and 2½ cups flour; mix well.

  3. Add 1 teaspoon baking powder to each cup of flour.

Bake

  1. In a greased pan, layer the dark and white mixtures alternately.

  2. Bake until a toothpick inserted 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

All-purpose flour
Builds the cake's structure as its proteins set during baking.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, with yolks adding fat and whites adding lift.
Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and gives a tender, rich crumb.
Sour milk
Its acidity tenderizes the crumb and reacts with the leavening.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness, and the dark colour of the dark batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and become light.

The step that matters

Bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Underbaking leaves wet batter in the centre that can sink, while overbaking dries the crumb. A clean toothpick shows the structure has set but the cake is not dry.

“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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