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Dessert

Marble Cake

A layered cake with dark and white batters, flavored with molasses, coffee, spices, raisins, currants, and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. 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 dark batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together 1 cup butter, 2 cups brown sugar, 1 cup molasses, and 1 cup strong coffee.

  3. Add the yolks of 8 eggs, 4 ½ cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking soda, 2 teaspoons ground cloves, 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ground mace, 1 pound raisins, 1 pound English currants, and ¾ pound citron. Mix well.

Make the white batter

  1. In another bowl, cream together 1 cup butter, 4 cups sugar, and 2 cups sweet milk.

  2. Add 4 cups flour, 2 cups corn starch, and the beaten egg whites. Mix until smooth.

Bake

  1. Spoon alternating layers of the dark and white batter into a greased cake pan until almost full.

  2. Bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Coffee + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together895 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Egg yolks enrich the dark batter and egg whites lighten the white batter for a tender crumb.
Butter
Fat that makes both batters rich and tender while creaming with sugar.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color and deep sweetness to the dark batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and coffee to help the dark batter rise.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking to help the white batter rise.

The step that matters

Spooning the alternating layers. Layering the dark and white batters without fully mixing them keeps the marbled pattern. Filling the pan almost full leaves room for the cake to rise without overflowing.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, molasses, coffee, egg, flour, cinnamon. 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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