Name: Marbled Chocolate Cake
Ingredients: 1 cup white cake batter; 5 tablespoons grated chocolate; milk (as needed to moisten); vanilla extract

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Marbled Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

1 cup white cake batter
5 tablespoons grated chocolate
milk (as needed to moisten)
vanilla extract

Directions

Prepare a white cake batter.
Remove 1 cup of the batter and mix in 5 tablespoons of grated chocolate, adding milk to moisten and flavoring with vanilla.
Pour a layer of the white batter into a baking pan.
Drop spoonfuls of the chocolate batter onto the white batter in spots.
Spread the remaining white batter over the chocolate batter.

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.

Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,187 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,020 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,128 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).