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Dessert

Marbled Cake

A cake made with alternating light and dark batter layers, baked until a toothpick comes out clean.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Marbled Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

Make the batters

  1. For the light part, cream together white sugar and butter.

  2. Add sweet milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, and egg whites; mix well.

  3. Gradually stir in flour until smooth.

  4. For the dark part, mix brown sugar, molasses, butter, sour milk, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

Bake

  1. Layer the light and dark mixtures in a cake pan and swirl gently.

  2. Bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean, being careful not to over-bake.

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Egg whites
Add structure and lift to the light batter as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor in both batters.
Molasses
Gives the dark batter its color, moisture, and deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and cream of tartar to make the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, stabilizing the egg whites and helping the cake rise.

The step that matters

Swirling the batters. Swirling too much blends the light and dark batters into an even color and loses the marble pattern. Swirl gently, only enough to create streaks.

“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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