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Dessert

Marshmallow Cream

A chilled dessert made with marshmallows, heavy cream, egg whites, walnuts, sugar, salt, and flavoring, served in cups.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Marshmallow Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. Cut marshmallows into fourths and add to the beaten cream.

  2. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  3. Add walnut bits, powdered sugar, salt, and desired flavoring.

Serve

  1. Serve in sherbet cups and garnish with jelly cubes or candied cherries.

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

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

  2. Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,035 recipes

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

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Egg + meattop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Marshmallows
Soften into the cream and give the dessert its sweetness and body.
Heavy cream
Whipped to stiff peaks, it forms the light, airy base of the cream.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they add lightness and a delicate foamy texture.
Walnut meats
Add crunch and a nutty flavor that contrasts with the soft cream.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Stirring vigorously knocks air out of the whipped egg whites and cream, making the mixture dense and flat. Gentle folding keeps the foam intact so the cream stays light.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Filbertfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, meat, 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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