Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. 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 batter
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream together the sugar and butter.
Sift the flour and baking powder three times.
Add the flour and water alternately to the creamed mixture.
Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites carefully.
Bake and make the filling
Bake in 2 or 3 layers until golden.
For the filling, boil 2 cups sugar with 1 cup water until it ropes.
Just before removing from heat, stir in the marshmallows until melted.
Gradually stir the syrup into the well-beaten egg whites, beating continuously until thick and cool.
Assemble
Spread the filling between the layers.
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.
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Flour and butter 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
- Butter
- Creams with the sugar to add fat and tenderness to the crumb.
- Egg whites
- Whipped and folded in to lighten the batter and help it rise.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the layers rise and turn light.
- Marshmallows
- Melt into the filling to give it a soft, sticky, sweet body.
The step that matters
Gradually stir the syrup into the egg whites. Pouring hot syrup in slowly while beating keeps the whites from scrambling and lets them form a stable, thick foam. Adding it all at once can cook and deflate the whites.
“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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