Name: Marshmallow Frosting
Ingredients: 1 to 3 cups granulated sugar; 1 to 2 pounds marshmallows; ½ cup boiling water; 2 tablespoons boiling water; 2 egg whites; ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Marshmallow Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

Make the frosting

Prepare the sugar, marshmallows, and boiling water as for boiled frosting.
Cut the marshmallows into small pieces and melt them with the boiling water over a kettle.
Add the vanilla extract and beat the mixture until cold.

Finish

If desired, decorate with cubes of marshmallows.

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.

Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together27,347 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 a sweet, stretchy base that gives the frosting its body and marshmallow flavour.
Egg whites: Trap air when beaten, giving the frosting a light, fluffy structure.
Granulated sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the frosting hold its shape as it sets.

“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.