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Dessert

Marble Cake

A layered cake made with alternating white and dark batter, spiced with nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and black pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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.

Prepare

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

Make the batters

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg whites, butter, sweet milk, sifted flour, powdered sugar, and baking powder for the white part.

  2. In another bowl, combine the beaten egg yolks, sweet milk, brown sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, black pepper, sifted flour, and baking powder for the dark part.

Assemble and bake

  1. Grease a cake pan.

  2. Layer the white and dark mixtures alternately.

  3. 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whip-free structure from the whites gives the light white batter lift and body.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich crumb in both batters.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together once baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so both batters rise and become light.
Egg yolks
Add richness, moisture and colour to the dark batter.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture and a deeper colour to the dark batter.

The step that matters

Layering the white and dark mixtures alternately. Pouring the two batters in loose, alternating layers keeps them separate so the marbled pattern forms. Heavy stirring after layering blends them into one uniform colour.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicethe original
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

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