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Dessert

Marble Cake

A layered cake with a marbled appearance made from butter, sugar, eggs, sweet milk, flour, molasses, spices, and currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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.

Make the batter

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

  2. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  3. Stir in the sweet milk.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the cream of tartar, baking soda, and flour.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until smooth.

  6. Divide the batter into two bowls; to one, add the molasses, spices, and currants.

Bake and finish

  1. Layer the two batters in a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.

  3. Frost as desired.

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
Creams with the sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich texture.
Sugar
Creams with the butter for a light structure and adds sweetness and browning.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and emulsify the batter; they help bind the crumb.
Cream of tartar
Acidic partner to baking soda, producing carbon dioxide so the cake rises.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to leaven the batter and lighten the crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake's crumb as it bakes.

The step that matters

Layering the two batters. Pouring the light and dark batters in without care can blend them into an even colour rather than a marble pattern. Because the batters also differ in weight, they may sink unevenly, so a gentle hand keeps the swirl distinct.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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