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Dessert

Marble Cake

A layered cake made by alternating light and dark batter mixtures.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. 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 white batter

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

  2. Beat the whites of 4 eggs until stiff.

  3. Cream together 1 cup white sugar and ½ cup butter.

  4. Add ½ cup sweet milk, 2 teaspoons baking powder, and 1 teaspoon vanilla or lemon extract to the creamed mixture.

  5. Gradually stir in 2½ cups sifted flour.

Make the dark batter

  1. Mix the yolks of 4 eggs with 1 cup brown sugar and ½ cup cooking molasses.

  2. Cream in ½ cup butter and ½ cup sour milk.

  3. Add 1 teaspoon ground cloves, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon mace, and 1 grated nutmeg.

  4. Dissolve 1 teaspoon baking soda in a little milk and add it to the mixture after stirring in part of the flour.

  5. Combine with 1½ cups sifted flour.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the light and dark mixtures alternately in a well-buttered cake dish, trying to create a streaked effect for a marble appearance.

  2. Bake 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Vanilla + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Whipped whites add lift and a light crumb, while yolks add richness and tenderness.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once mixed with the liquids and sugar.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavor in both batters.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to make the cake rise and stay light.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk and molasses to help the dark batter rise and darken.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep color, and a slightly bitter sweetness to the dark batter.

The step that matters

Drop the light and dark mixtures alternately. Spooning the batters in loose alternating layers, rather than stirring them together, keeps two distinct colors so the streaked marble pattern forms when baked.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

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