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Dessert

Marble Cake

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

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

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 the batters

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

  2. For the white batter, beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  3. Mix cream of tartar into the flour.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in a little of the milk.

  5. Cream together the butter and white sugar.

  6. Add the egg whites, milk, baking soda, and flour to the creamed mixture.

  7. For the dark batter, beat the egg yolks until light.

  8. Dissolve the baking soda in the molasses.

  9. Mix cream of tartar into the flour.

  10. Cream together the brown sugar and butter.

  11. Add the egg yolks, molasses with baking soda, milk, spices, and flour to the mixture.

Bake

  1. In a well-buttered baking pan, alternate layers of the white and dark batters.

  2. Bake for about 30 minutes.

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
Whites whipped to stiff peaks give the light batter its airy structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar and molasses to lift and lighten the batters.
Molasses
Gives the dark batter its colour, moisture, and a deep, slightly acidic flavour.
Brown sugar
Adds moisture and caramel-like sweetness to the dark batter.

The step that matters

Layering the white and dark batters. Both batters must be light and mixed evenly so they rise together. Alternating layers in a well-buttered pan keeps the marble pattern clean and helps the cake release after baking.

Swap the clove

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

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

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