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Chocolate Marshmallow Cake

A chocolate cake layered with marshmallows and topped with chocolate frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and cocoa work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 357 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate 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.

Make the cake batter

  1. Cream the butter with the sugar gradually.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolks.

  3. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  4. Mix the flour with the baking powder, then beat the flour mixture into the batter thoroughly.

  5. Stir in the melted chocolate and vanilla.

Bake and fill

  1. Bake in shallow cake pans at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Once removed from the pans, place pulled-apart marshmallows on top and between the layers.

Make and pour the frosting

  1. For the frosting, melt 1¼ tablespoons of butter.

  2. Add cocoa, confectioner's sugar, salt, and milk to the melted butter.

  3. Heat the frosting mixture to a boil and boil for about 8 minutes.

  4. Remove the frosting from heat and beat until creamy.

  5. Stir in ½ teaspoon vanilla.

  6. Pour the frosting over 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. Vanilla + cocoatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  3. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

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

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

Eggs
Egg yolks enrich the batter, and whipped whites give the cake lift and a light crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and tenderness to the cake.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Chocolate
Adds chocolate flavour and deep colour to the cake.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender texture when creamed with butter.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Whites are full of trapped air that lifts the batter. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring or overmixing deflates the foam and leaves a dense cake.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Hazelnutfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, flour, chocolate, vanilla, milk. 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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