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Dessert

Marble Cake

A layered cake with alternating light and dark batters made from butter, sugar, milk, flour, baking powder, molasses, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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 the oven

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

Make the light batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar for the light part.

  2. Add the sweet milk and mix well.

  3. Sift the flour with 1 teaspoon of baking powder and fold it into the mixture.

  4. Whip the egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the batter.

Make the dark batter

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

  2. Add the egg yolks, milk, and molasses, mixing well.

  3. Sift the flour with 2 teaspoons of baking powder, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, and allspice, then fold into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Grease the baking pans and alternate layers of light and dark batter.

  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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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 holds the cake's crumb together as it sets.
Eggs
Whipped whites trap air, lightening the batter and helping the cake rise and stay tender.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb by coating flour and trapping air during creaming.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender texture and browned crust when creamed with butter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the cake to rise and become light.
Molasses
Gives the dark batter its color and flavor, and adds moisture.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Fold the whipped whites gently so the trapped air is kept in the batter. Stirring or deflating them would make the cake dense and less light.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

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