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Dessert

Marshmallow Cake

A sweet cake made with sugar, butter, flour, milk, baking powder, egg whites, marshmallows, and chocolate frosting.

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

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 ↓

Marshmallow 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 cake

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

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the flour, milk, baking powder, and egg whites, mixing until smooth.

  4. Pour the batter into two greased cake pans and bake until golden.

Make the filling and assemble

  1. Melt 30 marshmallows with 1 teaspoon of hot water over a double boiler until smooth.

  2. Once the cake layers are cool, spread the melted marshmallow between them.

  3. Frost the top with chocolate frosting.

  4. Cut the remaining 10 marshmallows in half and place them on top of 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps give the crumb its tender texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Egg whites
Add structure and lift to the batter as they set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Marshmallows
Melt into a sweet, soft layer that binds the cake layers together.

The step that matters

Melting the marshmallow filling. Marshmallow scorches or turns grainy if overheated, so it is melted gently over a double boiler and stirred until smooth. Gentle, indirect heat keeps the sugar from burning.

“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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