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Dessert

Marble Cake

A layered cake made with alternating white and brown batters, flavored with spices and molasses.

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the white batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400 °F (200 °C).

  2. In a bowl, cream together the white sugar and ½ cup butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the egg whites and mix well.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk.

  5. Add the dissolved mixture to the batter.

  6. In another bowl, combine the cream of tartar with the flour.

  7. Mix the combined ingredients into the batter.

Make the brown batter

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the brown sugar, ½ cup butter, egg yolks, molasses, and the second baking soda dissolved in sour milk.

  2. Add the allspice, cloves, and nutmeg to the brown mixture.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer the white and brown batters alternately in a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  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

Eggs
Egg whites give the white batter lift and structure, while yolks add richness and tenderness.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavour in both batters.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acid that stabilises the whipped egg whites and supports rising with the baking soda.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and a deep sweetness to the brown batter.

The step that matters

Layering the white and brown batters. Pour the batters in alternating spoonfuls rather than all at once, so they stay separate and form the marbled pattern. Mixing them together would turn the cake a uniform colour.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

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