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Dessert

Marshmallow Fudge

A sweet confection made with sugar, milk, cream, butter, chocolate, cocoa, and marshmallows.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 Fudge

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fudge

  1. Combine sugar, milk, heavy cream, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Boil for ten minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Add chocolate and cocoa, stirring quickly for two minutes.

  4. Remove from heat and set the pan in cold water.

  5. Beat until thick.

Finish and set

  1. Fold in chopped marshmallows.

  2. Pour into a buttered tin.

  3. Cut into squares.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Chocolate + cocoatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-ethyl-3,6-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Milk + cocoatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Granulated sugar
Provides sweetness and, when boiled, the structure that sets the fudge.
Heavy cream
Adds fat for a smoother, richer texture.
Chocolate
Supplies chocolate flavor and fat that help make the fudge creamy.
Cocoa
Intensifies the chocolate flavor.
Chopped marshmallows
Folded in at the end to add soft texture and sweetness.

The step that matters

Beating until thick. Cooling the boiled sugar mixture in cold water and then beating it encourages fine sugar crystals to form, giving a smooth, firm texture. Beating too early or too late can leave the fudge grainy or too soft to set.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Peanutfits about as well
  3. Pecansfits about as well
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, cream, butter, chocolate. 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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