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Dessert

Cochineal Marble Cake

A marble cake flavored with cochineal, made with butter, powdered sugar, flour, water, egg whites, baking powder, and a cochineal infusion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cochineal 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 batter

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

  2. Cream the butter and powdered sugar together until smooth.

  3. Beat the egg whites until frothy.

  4. Gradually combine the egg whites with the butter and sugar mixture.

Marble and pour

  1. Soak the cochineal in hot water, bruise it, and strain it into three-fourths of a teacup of the cake batter.

  2. Pour the batter into the cake tin, marbling with the red dough as you go.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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, as its fat coats the flour and limits toughness.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps trap air for a lighter crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they add lift and help set the crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the cake rise.
Cochineal
Natural red colouring that gives the marbled swirls their colour.

The step that matters

Gradually combining the egg whites. Whipped egg white foam traps air that makes the cake light. Adding it gradually and folding gently keeps that foam from collapsing, while overmixing deflates it and yields a denser cake.

“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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