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Dessert

New Year's Marble Cake

A layered marble cake made with egg yolk batter and egg white batter, flavored with molasses, spices, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

New Year's 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, mix the egg yolks, brown sugar, molasses, butter, sour milk, cloves, cinnamon, grated nutmeg, baking soda, and 1½ cups of flour until smooth.

  3. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add white sugar, butter, sweet milk, baking powder, vanilla, and 2½ cups of flour.

Bake

  1. In a greased pan, alternate spoonfuls of the white batter and the dark batter.

  2. Bake for about 30-40 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped until stiff, they lighten the white batter and help give the cake its airy structure.
Egg yolks
Add richness and tenderness to the dark batter and help bind it.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the white batter, helping it rise and turn light.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to lift the dark batter and deepen its color.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness to the dark batter.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.

The step that matters

Alternating the two batters in the pan. Spooning the light and dark batters in loosely keeps them as distinct swirls. Heavy stirring or overmixing would blend them into an even color and deflate the whipped egg whites, reducing the lift that makes the cake light.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Clovethe original
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, molasses, butter, milk, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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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