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Dessert

Marshmallow Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made with gelatin, marshmallows, heavy cream, sugar, flavoring, and served with rolled parched almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Soak the gelatin in a little cold water until softened.

  2. Dissolve the gelatin over hot water.

  3. Beat the marshmallows into the whipped cream.

  4. Sweeten and flavor the mixture to taste.

  5. Fold the dissolved gelatin into the whipped cream mixture.

Freeze and serve

  1. Freeze until firm.

  2. Serve with rolled parched almonds.

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. 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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the cream so the frozen ice cream holds its shape and stays firm.
Marshmallows
Add sweetness and a soft, airy body to the cream.
Heavy whipping cream
Provides fat and whipped air that give the ice cream its rich, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Fold the dissolved gelatin into the whipped cream mixture. Gelatin must be dissolved and warm but not hot enough to deflate the whipped cream. If it is added in clumps or too cool, it sets in streaks instead of blending evenly, and folding gently keeps the air in the cream for a light texture.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Nutsfits less well

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