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Dessert

Marble Cake

A layered cake with alternating white and dark batter made from butter, sugar, flour, milk, molasses, spices, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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. 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.

Prepare

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

Make the batters

  1. In a bowl, cream together 1 cup of butter and 2 cups of sugar. Add 4 cups of flour, 1 cup of sweet milk, the whites of 7 eggs, and 3 teaspoons of baking powder. Mix well.

  2. In another bowl, combine 1 cup of molasses, 1 cup of butter, 1 cup of sweet milk, 2 cups of dark brown sugar, 2 tablespoons of cinnamon, 2 teaspoons of allspice, 1 teaspoon of cloves, 1 teaspoon of nutmeg, and 3 teaspoons of baking powder. Mix until smooth.

Bake

  1. In a greased six-quart pan, alternate layers of the white batter and the dark batter as desired.

  2. Bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Whites add structure and lift to the light batter as they set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and turn light and tender.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and carries flavor through the crumb.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color and deep sweetness to the dark batter.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.

The step that matters

Alternating the white and dark batters in the pan. Pouring the two batters in layers without fully mixing them creates the marbled pattern. Stirring too much blends them into an even brown cake, so the layers should be spooned in loosely.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

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