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Dessert

Marble Cake

A layered cake with alternating white and dark batters, flavored with lemon and 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.

Make the batters

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together 1 cup of butter and 3 cups of white sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add 5 cups of flour, ½ cup of sweet milk, ½ teaspoon of baking soda, and the whites of 8 eggs. Mix well and flavor with lemon.

  4. In another bowl, cream together 1 cup of butter and 2 cups of brown sugar.

  5. Stir in 1 cup of molasses, 1 cup of sour milk, 1 teaspoon of baking soda, and 4 cups of flour.

  6. Add the yolks of 8 eggs and 1 whole egg, along with spices to taste. Mix until combined.

Bake and serve

  1. In a prepared cake pan, alternate layers of dark and white batter, finishing with a dark layer.

  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. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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
Creams with the sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Whites and yolks add structure, richness and moisture to both batters.
Molasses
Adds deep color, moisture and a rich flavor to the dark batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to help the cake rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and tenderizes the dark batter.

The step that matters

Alternating the dark and white batters. Pour in layers rather than mixing them so the batters stay distinct and produce the marbled pattern. Stirring them together blends the colors and loses the marble effect.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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