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Dessert

Marble Cake

A layered cake with alternating white and brown batter for a marbled appearance.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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.

Prepare

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

  2. Grease your cake pans.

Make the batters

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

  2. In another bowl, cream together the white sugar and butter.

  3. Add the sour milk, flour, and baking soda to the sugar mixture, mixing well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the egg yolks, brown sugar, butter, sour milk, flour, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves.

Marble and bake

  1. Spoon alternating layers of the white and dark batter into the pans to create a marbled effect.

  2. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted 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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 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. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they add lightness and airy structure to the batter.
Egg yolks
They add richness and help bind the dark batter.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds tenderness and fat for a soft crumb.
All-purpose flour
Its proteins set into the cake structure as it bakes.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise and keeps it moist.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.

The step that matters

Marbling the batters. Spooning the white and dark batters in alternating layers keeps them distinct; overmixing blends them into an even colour and loses the marble pattern. Careful, light layering preserves the contrast while the cake bakes.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, milk, flour, cinnamon, allspice. 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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