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Chocolate Marshmallows

Chocolate Marshmallows are marshmallows coated in melted chocolate and topped with pistachio nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Pistachio and nuts match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 425 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Chocolate Marshmallows

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Buy marshmallows.

  2. Melt chocolate and coat the marshmallows.

  3. If marshmallows are large, cut them in half before coating.

  4. Sprinkle chopped pistachio nuts over the chocolate before it sets.

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. Pistachio + nutstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

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

  2. Chocolate + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Chocolate + pistachiotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Marshmallows
Provide a soft, sweet, airy center that the chocolate coating surrounds.
Chocolate
Forms a thin coating that hardens as it cools, adding sweetness, richness and a snap.
Chopped pistachio nuts
Add a crunchy texture and nutty flavour that contrasts with the soft marshmallow.

The step that matters

Sprinkle the pistachio nuts before the chocolate sets. Chocolate firms as it cools and loses its tackiness. Nuts added after it sets will not stick to the surface and will fall off, so they must go on while the coating is still soft.

Swap the pistachio

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chocolate, nuts):

  1. Peanutfits about as well
  2. Pistachiothe original
  3. Almondfits less well
  4. Hazelnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, nuts. 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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