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Dessert

Marshmallow Pudding

A gelatin-based dessert made with egg whites, lemon juice, sugar, and optional flavorings, nuts, cherries, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Marshmallow Pudding

Why it works: Vanilla and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Marshmallow Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatin base

  1. Dissolve the gelatin in ½ cup of cold water over low heat.

  2. Once dissolved, add 1 cup of cold water and let it cool.

Whip and flavor

  1. Beat the egg whites until very stiff using a wire whisk.

  2. Slowly add the gelatin mixture to the egg whites while beating carefully.

  3. Add the lemon juice and gradually sprinkle in the sugar while continuing to beat.

  4. Divide the mixture into three parts and flavor each with different extracts and food coloring, leaving one part white.

  5. If desired, mix in chopped nuts and candied cherries.

Set and serve

  1. Layer the mixtures in a bread tin and refrigerate until firm.

  2. Slice and serve with whipped cream.

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. Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + nutstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Gelatin + creamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Vanilla + nutstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the pudding its light, airy structure.
Gelatin
Sets the whipped mixture so it holds its shape when chilled and sliced.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps stabilize the whipped egg white foam.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps stabilize the egg white foam.

The step that matters

Slowly add the gelatin mixture to the egg whites while beating carefully. Gelatin that is still warm or added in one go can deflate the whipped egg white foam, and gelatin that has begun to set can form lumps. Adding it slowly while beating keeps the foam light and evenly distributed.

Swap the nuts

The recipe marks nuts as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (gelatin, egg, lemon, sugar, vanilla, almond, cream):

  1. Pistachiofits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, egg, lemon, sugar, vanilla, almond, cream. 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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