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Dessert

Marble Cake

A layered cake made with white sugar, butter, sour milk, egg whites, brown sugar, molasses, egg yolks, 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.

Prepare

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

Make the batters

  1. In a bowl, cream together the white sugar and butter.

  2. Add the sour milk and egg whites, mixing well.

  3. In another bowl, combine the brown sugar, molasses, sour milk, and egg yolks.

  4. Mix in the flour, baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves.

Bake

  1. Combine both mixtures as desired.

  2. Pour into two long deep tins and bake until a toothpick 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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the cake a tender texture and flavour.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter while contributing to a tender crumb.
Egg whites
Trap air and add lift, helping the cake rise and stay light.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness and the dark colour that marbles the batter.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise and tenderise.

The step that matters

Combine both mixtures as desired. Swirling the light and dark batters too much blends them into a uniform colour, losing the marble pattern. Gentle folding keeps streaks distinct while the batter still bakes evenly.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

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