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Dessert

Chococate Marble Cake

A layered cake made by alternating light and dark batters, finished with chocolate and lemon frosting.

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 ↓

Chococate 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.

Prepare the light batter

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

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  3. In a bowl, cream together the butter and granulated sugar.

  4. Add the egg whites and sweet milk, mixing well.

  5. Stir in enough flour to make a stiff batter and add 2 teaspoons of baking powder.

Make the dark batter

  1. For the dark part, mix the egg yolks, brown sugar, milk, butter, 2 teaspoons of baking powder, and chocolate powder.

  2. Add enough flour to make a stiff batter, ensuring the flour is warmed before mixing.

Bake and frost

  1. Pour the batters into a greased cake pan, alternating between light and dark mixtures.

  2. Bake for about 1½ hours or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  3. Frost with chocolate frosting made with tartaric acid, then cover with a lemon-flavored white frosting.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Eggs
Whites trapped by beating add lift and an airy crumb, while yolks enrich the dark batter.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Chocolate
Provides the dark color and cocoa flavor of the marbled batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and lighten.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together.

The step that matters

Alternating the light and dark batters in the pan. Layering the two batters loosely, without stirring them together, keeps the distinct marble pattern. Overmixing blends them into an even brown color.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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