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Dessert

Uncooked Marshmallows

A sweet, gelatinous confection made from sugar, glucose, water, gelatin, and vanilla, then coated in sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and gelatin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,778 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Uncooked Marshmallows

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Dissolve the gelatin in 1½ gallons of water.

  2. In a kettle, combine the dissolved gelatin and glucose.

  3. Add the sugar and remaining water.

  4. Flavor with vanilla.

Whip and coat

  1. Beat the mixture until it is stiff using a marshmallow beater.

  2. Spread the mixture on a slab and coat the top and bottom with XXXX sugar.

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. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Gelatin + vanillatop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together924 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Sugar
Provides sweetness and the bulk of the candy's body.
Glucose
Keeps the syrup smooth by limiting sugar crystallization, giving a softer texture.
Gelatin
Forms the elastic network that traps air and sets the beaten mixture.

The step that matters

Beat until stiff. Beating whips air into the gelatin-stabilized syrup. Underbeating leaves it runny and unable to set, while overbeating makes it stiff and hard to spread on the slab before it sets.

“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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