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Dessert

Marbled Cake

A cake with alternating light and dark batters, made with sugar, butter, milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, eggs, flour, molasses, spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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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 ↓

Marbled Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the light batter

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

  2. For the light part, cream together white sugar and butter.

  3. Add sweet milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, and egg whites; mix well.

  4. Gradually add flour until combined.

Make the dark batter

  1. For the dark part, cream together brown sugar and molasses with butter.

  2. Add sour milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, and egg yolks; mix well.

  3. Gradually add flour and spices until combined.

Marble and bake

  1. In a greased pan, alternate spoonfuls of light and dark batter to create a marbled effect.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake crumb as the batter bakes.
Egg whites
Add lift and a light, airy texture to the light batter.
Egg yolks
Add richness and tenderness to the dark batter.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor in both batters.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweet flavor to the dark batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to help the cake rise.

The step that matters

Alternating the light and dark batter. Dropping spoonfuls of each batter in turn creates the marbling. Stirring them together would blend the two colors into one uniform batter, so the pattern is lost.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, cream, egg, flour, molasses. 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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