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Dessert

Marble Cake

A cake made by alternating batter of white and brown sugar mixtures to create a marbled appearance.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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.

Prepare

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

  2. In a bowl, beat the whites of 4 eggs until stiff.

Make the batters

  1. In another bowl, cream together ½ cup butter and 1 cup white sugar.

  2. Add the beaten egg whites, ½ cup sweet milk, 2 teaspoons baking powder, and 1 teaspoon lemon or vanilla extract to the butter mixture.

  3. Gradually stir in 2½ cups sifted flour until well combined.

  4. In a separate bowl, mix the yolks of 4 eggs, ½ cup cooking molasses, ½ cup sour milk, 1 cup brown sugar, 1 teaspoon ground cloves, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ground mace, and 1 grated nutmeg.

  5. Dissolve 1 teaspoon baking soda in a little sour milk and add it to the yolk mixture.

  6. Stir in 1½ cups sifted flour until smooth.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of each batter alternately into a well-buttered cake dish to create a marbled effect.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted 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. Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Eggs
Whites add lift and airy structure, while yolks add richness and help set the crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Baking soda
Releases gas when it meets acid, lifting the darker batter during baking.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and the deep colour of the darker batter.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and tenderises the batter.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in sour milk. Baking soda only produces gas when it reacts with an acid, so it must be fully dissolved in the sour milk and mixed evenly through the batter. Uneven distribution leads to pockets, patchy rise, or a coarse crumb.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Clovethe original

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