Skip to main content
Dessert

Marble Cake

A layered cake made by alternating light and dark batters of sugar, butter, milk, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

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.

Make the batters

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

  2. In a bowl, beat together the egg whites and white sugar.

  3. Mix the cream of tartar with the flour.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in the sweet milk.

  5. In another bowl, combine the brown sugar, molasses, sour milk, and baking soda.

  6. Add the browned flour, egg yolks, cloves, and cinnamon to the brown sugar mixture.

  7. Mix both mixtures until well combined.

Marble and bake

  1. In a cake pan, alternate layers of the light and dark batter or drop them in spots to create a marbled effect.

  2. Bake 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. 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 whites
Whipped with sugar to add lift and an airy, light structure to the pale batter.
Egg yolks
Add richness and tenderness to the dark batter and help bind it.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness and the dark colour of the marbled batter.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter and stabilises the whipped egg whites.
Browned flour
Gives the dark batter a toasty, nutty flavour and deeper colour.

The step that matters

Marbling the batters. Layering or dropping the light and dark batters gently keeps them distinct. Over-stirring or heavy spooning blends them into an even brown cake, losing the marbled pattern.

Swap the clove

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

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

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

More marble cake recipes

Chocolate 23 See all 221 →

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipes