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Dessert

Marshmallow Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made with sugar syrup, egg white, marshmallows, vanilla, salt, and heavy cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Marshmallow Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the marshmallow base

  1. Cook the sugar and water in a saucepan until it threads.

  2. Slowly pour the syrup over the beaten egg white while continuously beating.

  3. Stir in the broken marshmallows, vanilla, and salt.

Finish and freeze

  1. Fold the mixture into the heavy cream.

  2. Freeze until firm.

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

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

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

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

  3. Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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
Dissolves into the syrup that sets the base and adds sweetness.
Egg white
Whipped into the hot syrup to create a light, foamy structure.
Marshmallows
Add sweetness and body, and help the ice cream stay soft and smooth.
Heavy cream
Adds fat and richness, giving a creamy texture when frozen.

The step that matters

Pouring the syrup into the egg white. The syrup must be poured slowly while beating constantly. Hot syrup added too fast can scramble the egg white or deflate the foam, and the lightness that the ice cream depends on is lost.

“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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