Skip to main content
Dessert

Marble Cake

A layered cake with white and dark batter, made with butter, sugar, milk, eggs, flour, baking powder, spices, and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 the butter and white sugar.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and set aside.

  4. In another bowl, mix ½ cup of flour with the baking powder.

  5. Combine the creamed butter and sugar with the sweet milk and remaining flour.

  6. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  7. For the dark part, mix brown sugar, molasses, sour milk, and egg yolks with ½ cup butter.

  8. Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk and add to the mixture.

  9. Stir in the spices and remaining flour.

Bake and serve

  1. Layer the white and dark batter in a greased cake pan to create a marble effect.

  2. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick 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. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites are beaten for lift and airy structure; yolks add richness and set the crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds tenderness and richness to the crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to make the cake rise.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and deepens the color of the dark batter.
Molasses
Adds depth, moisture and color to the dark batter.

The step that matters

Layering the white and dark batter. Spooning the two batters in loosely, without over-stirring, keeps them as distinct swirls; mixing them fully turns the cake a uniform color and loses the marble effect.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

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

More marble cake recipes

Chocolate 23 See all 221 →

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipes