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Dessert

Marble Cake

A layered cake with white and brown batter swirled together, topped with beaten egg and sugar, baked until done.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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 ↓

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

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

Make the batters

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the white sugar and 1 cup of butter until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the sweet milk, 4 cups of flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda; mix well.

  3. In another bowl, beat the yolks of 7 eggs and mix with brown sugar, molasses, sour milk, and 1 cup of butter.

  4. Stir in 5 cups of flour, ground cloves, grated nutmeg, and 1.5 teaspoons of baking soda until combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Layer the white batter and brown batter in a greased cake pan, swirling them together for a marbled effect.

  2. Top with 1 beaten egg and 1 teacup of sugar.

  3. Bake for 45-50 minutes 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. 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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving a tender crumb and a rich flavor.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help bind the batter.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness to the brown batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and cream of tartar to produce lift.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise and stay tender.

The step that matters

Swirling the two batters. Over-stirring blends the light and dark batters into an even brown color, losing the marble pattern. Swirl gently, just enough to create streaks.

Swap the clove

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