Skip to main content
Dessert

White Marshmallow Cake

A cake with a marshmallow filling made from sugar, butter, milk, vanilla, flour, baking powder, egg whites, marshmallows, powdered sugar, milk, and hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

White Marshmallow Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cake

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter in a bowl.

  2. Add the milk and vanilla extract, mixing well.

  3. Sift the flour and baking powder together.

  4. Add it alternately with the beaten egg whites to the mixture.

  5. Divide the batter into two layers.

  6. Bake until golden.

Make the frosting

  1. Melt the marshmallows with the hot water in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the powdered sugar and milk until thick, about 6 minutes.

  3. Combine the melted marshmallows with the sugar and milk mixture.

  4. Whip until stiff enough to spread on the cake.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vanilla + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Creams with sugar to give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Egg whites
Beaten in to add lift and structure to the batter.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises.
Marshmallows
Melt into the frosting to give it a soft, sweet, spreadable body.
Powdered sugar
Cooked with milk to thicken the frosting and add sweetness.

The step that matters

Whip until stiff enough to spread on the cake. The frosting must be cooled and whipped to the right stiffness; if it is too warm or under-whipped it will run off the cake, and over-whipping can make it grainy or dry.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg. 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 marshmallow cake recipes

Chocolate 6Filling 4 See all 54 →

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes