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 Cakes
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
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the egg whites and mix well.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, alternating with the sweet milk, and mix until just combined.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 30-40 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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
- Egg whites
- Provide structure and lift, trapping air to give the cake a light crumb.
- Flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the cake its set structure.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness, richness and a fine crumb.
- White sugar
- Creaming with butter aerates the batter and adds sweetness and browning.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
- Cream of tartar
- Provides acid that reacts with baking soda, helping the cake rise and stabilising the batter.
The step that matters
Mixing after adding the dry ingredients. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form. Mixing only until combined keeps the crumb tender; overmixing makes the cake tough and dense.
“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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