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Dessert

Marble Cake

A cake with alternating light and dark batters made from sugar, butter, milk, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, eggs, molasses or chocolate, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 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 the batters

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together 1 cup light brown sugar and ½ cup softened butter.

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

  4. In another bowl, combine ½ cup brown sugar, ¼ cup softened butter, 1 cup milk, ½ cup molasses or grated chocolate, 2 cups flour, 3 egg yolks, ½ teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon cream of tartar, 1 teaspoon allspice, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and ½ grated nutmeg. Mix until smooth.

  5. In a separate bowl, beat the 3 egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold the egg whites into the light batter gently.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a greased baking pan, alternate layers of the light and dark batters.

  2. Bake for 30-40 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 richness and tenderness, and helps give the cake its fine crumb.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the light batter and give the cake its airy structure.
Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsify the dark batter, helping it bake smooth and moist.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Molasses or grated chocolate
Supplies the dark color and deep flavor that makes the dark batter contrast with the light.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped egg whites trap air that makes the light batter rise. Folding gently keeps that air in; vigorous stirring deflates it and leaves a denser cake.

Swap the allspice

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. Allspicethe 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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