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Dessert

Marble Cake

A layered cake with alternating white and brown batter, swirled to create a marbled appearance.

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. 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.

Prepare the batters

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

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. In another bowl, cream together the white sugar and 1 cup of butter.

  4. Add the sweet milk, 4 cups of flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda to the butter mixture.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  6. In a separate bowl, mix the egg yolks with brown sugar and 1 cup of molasses.

  7. Add the sour milk, 1 cup of butter, 5 cups of flour, ground cloves, grated nutmeg, and baking soda to the yolk mixture.

Assemble and bake

  1. Grease and flour a cake pan.

  2. Pour alternating layers of the white and brown batter into the pan.

  3. Swirl with a knife to create a marbled effect.

  4. Bake for 45-50 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Whites whipped to stiff peaks lighten the white batter; yolks add richness and color to the brown batter.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for tender crumb and rich flavor in both batters.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and deepens the color of the dark batter.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that helps the cake rise.

The step that matters

Swirling the batters. Too many passes with the knife blend the two batters into a uniform brown cake instead of distinct marbled layers. Use a few gentle strokes so the light and dark batters stay separate.

Swap the clove

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

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

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