Skip to main content
Dessert

Marble Cake

A layered cake with alternating white and dark batter, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Marble Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batters

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together ½ cup butter and 1 cup sugar for the white part.

  3. Add ½ cup sweet milk, 4 egg whites, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 2 cups flour, and 1 teaspoon lemon extract. Mix well.

  4. In another bowl, mix 4 egg yolks with 1 cup sugar, ½ cup molasses, ½ cup butter, and ½ cup sweet milk.

  5. Stir in 2 cups flour, ½ teaspoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon cloves, and grated nutmeg.

Bake

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

  2. Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick 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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  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

Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb by coating the flour and creaming with sugar.
Eggs
Provide structure and lift in the batter, with yolks adding richness and color.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake crumb once set by heat.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Molasses
Darkens the batter to create the contrasting marble color and adds depth of flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender texture when creamed with butter.

The step that matters

Alternating the white and dark mixtures in the pan. Layering the two batters loosely rather than stirring them creates the marbled pattern. Over-mixing them together blends the batters into one uniform color and dulls the contrast.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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

More marble cake recipes

Chocolate 23 See all 221 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipes