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Dessert

Marshmallow Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made from sweet cream, milk, marshmallows, and orange flower water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,696 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Marshmallow Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Reserve 12 marshmallows.

  2. Dissolve the remaining marshmallows in the milk using a double boiler, stirring constantly until thick.

  3. Let the mixture cool, then pour it into a freezer.

Finish and freeze

  1. Once cold, add the sweet cream and the orange flower water.

  2. Cut the reserved marshmallows into small pieces and fold them into the mixture.

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. Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + orangetop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Marshmallows
Melt into the milk to add sweetness, body and a soft, creamy texture to the base.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the melted marshmallows thicken and the cream enriches.
Sweet cream
Adds fat, making the frozen ice cream richer and smoother in texture.
Orange flower water
Adds a floral aroma that complements the sweet, creamy base.

The step that matters

Dissolve the marshmallows over a double boiler. Gentle, indirect heat melts the marshmallows evenly without scorching the milk. Constant stirring prevents sugar from sticking and burning on the bottom, which would give a scorched flavour and grainy texture.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, milk. 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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