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Marshmallow Pudding

A gelatin-based dessert made with egg whites, sugar, nuts, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Marshmallow Pudding

Why it works: Gelatin and cream match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Marshmallow Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatin

  1. Dissolve gelatin in ½ cup water.

  2. Add boiling water to make ½ cup total.

Make the mixture

  1. Beat egg whites until stiff, then gradually add sugar and beat until stiff.

  2. Combine gelatin with the egg mixture.

  3. Divide mixture into three parts; color one part pink.

Layer and finish

  1. Layer white mixture, sprinkle with nuts, add pink mixture, more nuts, then top with white mixture.

  2. Finish with whipped cream on top.

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Nuts + creamtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together886 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Knox's gelatin
Sets the whipped egg white mixture so the layers hold their shape.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam to give the pudding its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Stabilizes the whipped egg whites and adds sweetness.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a soft, creamy topping.

The step that matters

Beat egg whites until stiff, then add sugar gradually. Egg whites must be beaten to stiff peaks with sugar added slowly so the foam stays stable. Fat or yolk residue can stop them from whipping, and an unstable foam collapses, leaving the pudding dense instead of light.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (gelatin, egg, sugar, cream):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, egg, sugar, 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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