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Dessert

Marble-cake

A layered cake with a dark and white part made from eggs, sugars, butter, molasses, spices, flour, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Marble-cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate 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. In a bowl, mix the dark part: beat together the egg yolks, brown sugar, butter, molasses, sour cream, and ground cloves.

  2. In another bowl, prepare the white part: beat the egg whites, then add white sugar, butter, and baking soda.

Bake

  1. Combine the dark and white mixtures by layering them alternately in a baking pan.

  2. Bake for one hour.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  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 yolks
Add richness and help bind the dark batter.
Egg whites
Whipped to trap air, giving the white batter lightness and lift.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and tenderness, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidic ingredients to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.

The step that matters

Layering the dark and white batters. Alternating the two batters in the pan creates the marbled pattern. Overmixing once combined blurs the swirls, and the batters should be spooned in gently so they stay distinct while baking.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, molasses, cream, flour, pepper. 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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