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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream together the sugar and butter.
Add the sweet milk, pastry flour, cornstarch, egg whites, baking powder, and anise extract. Mix well.
Pour the batter into two large or three small cake pans.
Bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Make the icing
For the icing, prepare boiled icing and let it cool.
Once cool, stir in the marshmallows cut into small bits and a few drops of anise until smooth.
Assemble and decorate
Spread the marshmallow icing between the layers of cake.
Add more anise to the remaining icing and cover the entire cake.
Toast some marshmallow halves and arrange them on the top edge of the cake.
Create a clover-leaf design with the toasted marshmallows and place un-toasted halves around the base.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + anisetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together270 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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).
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
- Egg whites
- Provide structure and lift so the cake holds its shape while baking.
- Butter
- Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
- Pastry flour
- Forms the cake's structure with a fine, tender crumb.
- Cornstarch
- Softens the crumb by diluting gluten in the flour.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas to make the cake rise.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay moist.
The step that matters
Stir the marshmallows into the cooled boiled icing. Marshmallows melt and thin quickly when heated, so the icing should be cool enough that they blend smoothly rather than turning runny or grainy.
Swap the anise
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Jalapenofits about as well
- Anisethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, 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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