Name: Marble Cake
Ingredients: melted chocolate; plain cake batter; spices; currants; citron; preserved orange peel; preserved lemon peel

Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Marble Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Mix melted chocolate with one-third of the plain cake batter.
In a pan, layer the plain cake batter, followed by the chocolate mixture, and then the remaining plain cake batter.
For a variation, mix one-third of the batter with spices, currants, citron, or a little preserved orange or lemon peel.

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.

Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Currant + orangetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,034 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Chocolate + orangetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together928 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).
Currant + lemontop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,270 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Chocolate + curranttop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together111 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).