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Dessert

Marshmallows

A sweet confection made from gum arabic, powdered sugar, egg white, and orange flower extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and corn work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 586 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Marshmallows

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Soak the gum arabic in water until soft.

  2. Add powdered sugar and stir until combined.

  3. Heat in a saucepan until thick and white.

  4. Test in water; it should form a firm but not hard ball.

Finish and set

  1. Beat the egg white and add to the mixture for sponginess.

  2. Flavor with orange flower extract.

  3. Pour the mixture onto a pan and cover with corn starch.

  4. Once cool, cut into squares.

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. Orange + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together586 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + corntop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Gum arabic
Dissolved in water, it forms a viscous, elastic base that holds the marshmallow's structure.
Powdered sugar
Provides sweetness and bulk, and helps the mixture set into a soft, sweet body.
Egg white
Beaten into the mixture to trap air, giving the marshmallow its light, spongy texture.

The step that matters

Testing the cooked syrup in water. Cook the mixture only until it forms a firm but not hard ball in cold water. Overcooking makes the set candy hard and brittle, while undercooking leaves it too soft to hold its shape.

Swap the orange

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

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

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

More marshmallows recipes

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