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Dessert

Marshmallow Candy

A sweet confection made by boiling sugar, gelatin, and butter, then cutting into small pieces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and gelatin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,778 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Marshmallow Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the syrup and gelatin

  1. Boil 2 cups sugar and ¼ cup water until it threads.

  2. Dissolve ½ box gelatin in ½ cup cold water.

  3. Beat the gelatin mixture into the sugar syrup until almost stiff.

  4. Cut into squares and place in a dish or square pan about 1 inch deep.

Make the second syrup

  1. In a separate pot, combine 2 cups sugar, 1 tablespoon butter, and 1 cup water.

  2. Cook until it reaches the soft ball stage.

Shape and finish

  1. Pour the mixture onto a greased marble surface.

  2. When slightly cool, work it to a cream with a wooden paddle and cut into small pieces.

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 + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + minttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Sugar + minttop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

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

  5. Gelatin + minttop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together46 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Provides sweetness and, when boiled into syrup, the body of the candy.
Gelatin
Sets the syrup into a firm, chewy, elastic structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, smoother bite.
Mint extract
Adds a fresh mint aroma and flavor.

The step that matters

Cooking the second syrup to the soft ball stage. Sugar syrup sets according to how far its water has boiled off. Stopping short leaves the candy soft and sticky, while going too far makes it hard and brittle, so the thermometer or cold-water test matters.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Mintthe original

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