Skip to main content
Dessert

Marbled Cake

A cake made by alternating a white batter and a dark batter, each containing flour, sugar, butter, eggs, milk, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Marbled 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 light batter

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C) and line a cake pan with parchment paper.

  2. In a bowl, cream together 1 ½ cups white sugar and ½ cup butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add ½ cup milk, ½ teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon cream of tartar, and 2 ½ cups flour; mix well.

Make the dark batter

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

  2. Stir in ½ cup sour milk, ½ teaspoon baking soda, 2 ½ cups flour, and the yolks of 4 eggs.

  3. Add ½ teaspoon each of cloves, allspice, cinnamon, and nutmeg to the dark batter.

Bake

  1. Drop the two batters alternately into the prepared cake pan using a spoon.

  2. Bake 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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  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, giving the cake a tender, fine crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidic ingredients to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acid that stabilizes the batter and works with the baking soda to aid rising.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda in the dark batter, helping it rise and stay tender.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Egg whites
Whites are used in the light batter, adding lift and structure to the crumb.

The step that matters

Drop the two batters alternately. Batters must be spooned in alternating layers so the light and dark colors form a marble pattern rather than blending into a uniform color. Keep the two batters at similar consistency so they layer cleanly.

Swap the clove

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

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

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

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes