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Dessert

Marble Cake

A layered cake with white and brown batter swirled together.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 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. 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.

Make the batters

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together 1 ½ cups butter and 3 cups sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the 15 egg whites and 1 ½ cups sweet milk, mixing well.

  4. Gradually add 5 cups flour, 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda, and 3 teaspoons cream of tartar, mixing until smooth.

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

  6. Stir in ½ cup sweet milk, 1 cup browned flour, and 5 egg yolks.

  7. Add ½ teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon cream of tartar, and 1 teaspoon each of ginger, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, vanilla, and lemon.

Bake

  1. Layer the white and brown mixtures in a greased cake pan and swirl gently with a knife.

  2. Bake for 45–50 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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 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, rich crumb.
Egg whites
Add structure and lift, helping the light batter hold its rise as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat to the darker batter, softening the crumb and deepening flavor.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that leavens the cake.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, reacting with baking soda to help the cake rise and stay light.

The step that matters

Swirling the two batters. Swirl gently with only a few passes of the knife. Overmixing blends the light and dark batters into an even brown color and knocks out the air that gives the cake its lift.

Swap the clove

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

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

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