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Dessert

Marble Cake

A layered cake with alternating light and dark batters, flavored with molasses, spices, and baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 27 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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

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

Make the batters

  1. In a bowl, beat the whites of 4 eggs until stiff.

  2. In another bowl, mix 1 ½ cups white sugar, ½ cup sweet milk, and ¾ cup butter until creamy.

  3. Add 1 teaspoon cream of tartar and 1 teaspoon baking soda to the mixture.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the yolks of 4 eggs with 1 ½ cups brown sugar and ½ cup butter.

  5. Stir in ½ cup sour milk and 1 teaspoon baking soda.

  6. Add spices to taste and enough flour to make a batter thicker than layer cake.

  7. In another bowl, mix ½ cup brown sugar, ½ cup molasses, and 2 egg yolks.

  8. Add ¼ teaspoon cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon cloves, ½ cup sour milk, and 1 teaspoon baking soda.

  9. In a separate bowl, beat 3 egg whites and mix with 1 cup white sugar and ¾ cup butter.

  10. Add ½ teaspoon baking soda, ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar, and ¼ cup sour milk.

  11. Combine with 1 ½ cups flour to form a batter.

Marble and bake

  1. Layer the dark and light batters in a greased cake pan and swirl together.

  2. Bake for about 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. Milk + buttertop 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
Whipped whites give lift and an airy structure, while yolks add richness and tenderness.
Butter
Fat coats flour proteins, giving a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Brown sugar
Adds moisture, caramel flavour and a deeper colour to the dark batter.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and a robust, slightly bitter flavour to the dark batter.
Flour
Provides the protein structure that sets the cake crumb as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk and cream of tartar to produce gas that raises the batter.

The step that matters

Swirling the two batters. Swirl only gently, with a few passes. Over-mixing blends the light and dark batters into an even brown colour and loses the marble pattern, while too little swirling leaves the batters separate and unevenly baked.

Swap the cinnamon

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

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

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