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Dessert

Marble Cake

A cake made by layering and swirling a white batter with a brown batter to create a marbled effect.

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.

Prepare the white batter

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

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

  3. Add the egg whites and mix well.

  4. In another bowl, combine the baking soda with the sour milk and add to the mixture.

  5. Sift together the cream of tartar and flour, then gradually add to the mixture.

Make the brown batter

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the brown sugar, egg yolks, molasses, and ½ cup of butter until smooth.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk and add to the brown mixture.

  3. Stir in the allspice, cloves, and nutmeg.

Marble and bake

  1. Layer the white and brown mixtures in a greased cake pan, swirling them together to create a marble effect.

  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

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to both the white and brown batters.
Egg whites
Whipped structure and lift that helps the cake set light and airy.
Egg yolks
Add fat and richness to the brown batter, tenderizing the crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Molasses
Gives the brown batter its dark color, moisture, and deep sweetness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.

The step that matters

Marble and bake. Swirling the batters only lightly keeps two distinct patterns; overmixing blends them into an even brown color. Baking until a toothpick comes out clean ensures the centre has set without drying the crumb.

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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