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Dessert

Marble Cake

A layered cake made by alternating plain, chocolate, and colored batters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Marble Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Weigh the flour and sugar to match the weight of 3 eggs.

  2. Weigh the butter to match the weight of 2 eggs.

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

  4. Add a little flour and an egg alternately to the mixture.

  5. Finally, mix in the baking powder.

Marble and bake

  1. Divide the batter into three parts: add chocolate to one, cochineal to another, and leave the last plain.

  2. Layer the batters in a prepared cake pan.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 to 45 minutes.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + chocolatetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,543 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake sets.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender, lighter crumb when creamed with butter.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and traps air when creamed with sugar.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.

The step that matters

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beating softened butter with sugar traps air in the fat, which expands in the oven and helps give the cake a light, even crumb. Underbeaten batter bakes denser.

“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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