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Dessert

Marbled Cake

A layered cake with alternating yellow and chocolate batter, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

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 batter

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

  2. Cream the butter and powdered sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, alternating with the sweet milk.

Marble and bake

  1. Take out about 1 cup of the batter and stir in the grated chocolate mixed with 1 tablespoon of milk.

  2. In a greased cake mold, alternate spoonfuls of the yellow batter and the chocolate mixture.

  3. Use a spoon to slightly swirl the chocolate into the yellow batter for a marbled effect.

  4. Continue layering until all the batter is used.

  5. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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. 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. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter set around the air bubbles.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as it sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid with the baking soda, helping the cake rise and keeping it tender.
Grated chocolate
Adds chocolate flavour and the dark marbled streaks through the yellow batter.

The step that matters

Marbling the batter. Swirling too much mixes the chocolate fully into the yellow batter, losing the marbled pattern. A light, gentle swirl with a spoon keeps the two batters as distinct 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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