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Dessert

Marbled Chocolate Cake

A layered cake with alternating white and chocolate batter, baked and iced.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Marbled Chocolate 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 the batter

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

  2. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the sweet milk, flour, and baking powder, mixing well.

  4. Fold in the egg whites gently.

  5. Take 1 cup of the batter and mix in the grated chocolate and a splash of milk, then flavor with vanilla.

Marble and bake

  1. In a cake pan, pour a layer of the white batter.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the chocolate batter in spots over the white batter.

  3. Pour the remaining white batter over the top and smooth it out.

  4. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick comes out clean.

Finish

  1. Once cooled, ice with chocolate icing.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy creamed base.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Whites add lift and structure when folded in, keeping the crumb light.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Grated chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and creates the dark marbled streaks in the batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites gently. Egg whites hold air that gives the cake lift. Vigorous stirring knocks that air out, leaving a dense, flat cake.

“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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