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Dessert

Marshmallow Pudding

A chilled dessert made with marshmallows, cream, walnuts, maraschino cherries, vanilla, fruit juice or cider, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Marshmallow Pudding

Why it works: Walnut and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,730 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Marshmallow Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Cover the marshmallows with 1 pint of cream.

  2. Place in a double boiler and let dissolve.

  3. Add the chopped English walnuts and both types of chopped maraschino cherries.

  4. When cooled, stir in 1 teaspoon vanilla and 1 tablespoon fruit juice or cider.

Set and chill

  1. Fold in 1 pint of whipped cream.

  2. Set in a mold and chill on ice.

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. Walnut + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,730 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

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

  3. Vanilla + cidertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together128 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Cream + walnuttop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Walnut + cidertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together211 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Cream and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,301 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

Marshmallows
Melt into the cream to form a sweet, smooth, set base.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving the pudding a soft, creamy body.
Whipped cream
Folded in to lighten the texture and make the pudding airier.
English walnuts
Add crunch and a contrasting nutty flavor against the soft base.

The step that matters

Let the marshmallows dissolve gently in the double boiler. Gentle indirect heat melts the marshmallows smoothly into the cream without scorching or grainy lumps. Direct high heat can scorch the sugars and make the base stick or turn grainy.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, vanilla, cider. 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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