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Dessert

Marshmallow Cake

A layered cake made with butter, sugar, egg whites, flour, baking powder, milk, vanilla, and marshmallow paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Marshmallow Cake

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 ↓

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

  1. Cream the butter and gradually add the sugar.

  2. Beat in the egg whites until well combined.

  3. Sift the baking powder into the flour and add it to the mixture.

  4. Stir in the milk and vanilla until smooth.

  5. Bake in layers at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

Make the marshmallow paste

  1. For the marshmallow paste, boil 1½ cups sugar and ½ cup milk for just over 6 minutes.

  2. Melt the marshmallows by pulling them apart and adding them to a double boiler with 4 tablespoons of water.

  3. Cook until smooth, then combine with the sugar mixture and beat until stiff enough to spread.

  4. Add ½ teaspoon vanilla to the paste.

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. 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. Flour + vanillatop 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 trap air and give the cake a tender crumb.
Egg whites
Add structure and lift to the batter as they set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the layers rise and become light.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Marshmallows
Melt into a soft, sweet, spreadable paste for the filling or topping.

The step that matters

Beating the marshmallow paste until stiff enough to spread. Marshmallows must be fully melted and smooth before the sugar mixture is combined, otherwise lumps form. Beating incorporates air, which sets the paste's body as it cools, so under-beating leaves it too runny to spread.

Swap the vanilla

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, flour, 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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