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Dessert

Marble Layer Cake

A layered cake with alternating white and dark batter made from sugar, butter, milk, eggs, flour, spices, and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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 Layer 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the light batter

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, cream together white sugar and butter.

  3. Add milk and egg whites, mixing well.

  4. In another bowl, combine cream of tartar, baking soda, and flour, then add to the wet mixture.

Make the dark batter

  1. In a separate bowl, mix brown sugar, molasses, and milk.

  2. Add grated nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, baking soda, cream of tartar, and flour, then mix in egg yolks.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the light and dark mixtures in a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 30-35 minutes or 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

Butter
Adds fat that gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Egg whites
Add structure and lift to the light batter as they set in the oven.
Egg yolks
Add richness and moisture to the dark batter and help bind it.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar and molasses to produce lift.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, helping the baking soda react and stabilizing the egg whites.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness to the dark batter.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure as its proteins set during baking.

The step that matters

Layer the light and dark mixtures. Pour the two batters gently and alternately so they stay separate, creating the marbled pattern. Heavy mixing or pouring in one spot blends them into an even brown batter and loses the marble effect.

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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