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Dessert

Mock Marshmallow Frosting

A frosting made from confectioner's sugar, cocoa, butter, milk, and egg white, resembling marshmallow.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Mock Marshmallow Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

Make the frosting

  1. Sift together the confectioner's sugar and cocoa.

  2. Add the melted butter and blend well.

  3. Add just enough milk to make a stiff frosting.

  4. Stir in the stiffly beaten egg white.

  5. Beat until the mixture is the consistency of marshmallow.

Finish

  1. Spread on the cake when it is cool.

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. Cocoa + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Butter + cocoatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together548 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-undecalactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Confectioner's sugar
Provides sweetness and bulk, dissolving smoothly into the fat and liquid for a fine texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, spreadable body in the frosting.
Cocoa
Supplies chocolate flavour and dark colour to the frosting.
Egg white
Whipped into the frosting to lighten it and give the marshmallow-like airy texture.

The step that matters

Beat until the mixture is the consistency of marshmallow. Beating incorporates air into the fat and sugar mixture, which lightens its texture and makes it fluffy. Stopping too early leaves it dense, while over-beating can make it grainy or cause it to lose body.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Pecansfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Cocoathe original
  4. Walnutfits about as well

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

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