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Dessert

Marble Cake

A layered cake made with alternating white and brown batter swirled to create a marbled appearance.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. In another bowl, cream together the white sugar and 1 cup of butter.

  4. Add the sweet milk, 4 cups of flour, cream of tartar, and 1 teaspoon of baking soda to the butter mixture.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  6. In a separate bowl, mix the egg yolks with brown sugar and 1 cup of molasses.

  7. Add the sour milk, 1 cup of butter, 5 cups of flour, ground cloves, grated nutmeg, and 1½ teaspoons of baking soda.

Marble and bake

  1. Combine both mixtures by layering them in a greased cake pan.

  2. Swirl the batters together with a knife for a marbled effect.

  3. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted 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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lightens the crumb.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, tenderising the crumb and helping it set.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour, and creams with sugar to hold air.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and a deep sweetness to the darker batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lifts the batter.

The step that matters

Swirling the batters. Too many strokes with the knife blend the two batters into an even colour and lose the marble. A few gentle turns keep distinct light and dark streaks while the batter still rises evenly.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

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

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