Skip to main content
Dessert

Marshmallow Pudding

A gelatin-based dessert with sugar syrup, egg whites, fruit, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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

Prepare the gelatin and syrup

  1. Dissolve the gelatin in ½ cup of cold water.

  2. Boil ⅓ cup water with the sugar for 2-3 minutes, then add the dissolved gelatin.

Make the marshmallow

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Once the syrup is cool, gradually pour it into the egg whites while beating continuously.

  3. Fold in the fruit and serve with whipped cream.

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. Sugar + gelatintop 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. Gelatin + pineappletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together282 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Sugar + pineappletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 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

Gelatin
Sets the liquid so the mixture holds its soft, marshmallow-like shape.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they give the pudding its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and, boiled into syrup, helps give the mixture body.

The step that matters

Pouring the syrup into the egg whites. The syrup must be cool before it goes in, and it should be poured slowly while beating. Hot syrup can cook the egg whites and deflate the foam, while pouring too fast can collapse the airy structure.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Pineapplethe original

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

You might also like

Pineapple SherbetPineapple Sherbet116 recipesPineapple PuddingPineapple Pudding72 recipesPineapple CreamPineapple Cream58 recipesPineapple JellyPineapple Jelly39 recipes