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Dessert

Marshmallow Icing

A sweet icing made from sugar, water, egg white, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the sugar and water together slowly in a saucepan.

  2. Do not stir after the sugar dissolves.

  3. Dip a tablespoon into the mixture; if it shows a hair when lifted, it is ready.

Make the icing

  1. Whip the egg white with cream of tartar until stiff.

  2. Slowly pour the sugar mixture into the whipped egg white while stirring continuously.

  3. Add the desired flavoring.

  4. Whip until stiff enough to spread.

Apply and finish

  1. Apply the icing while it is still hot.

  2. Add a few drops of water to keep it thin.

  3. Do not rub the spatula over the icing once it begins to set to maintain gloss.

  4. Spread the icing when it is nearly cold for a dull finish.

  5. Use a pastry bag with fresh icing after the first layer has set for decoration.

  6. If the icing is too thin, thicken it with confectioners' sugar.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Egg white
Whipped into a foam that gives the icing its light, stiff structure.
Granulated sugar
Cooked into a syrup that sweetens the icing and sets into a glossy coating.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the egg white, helping its foam stay stable and stiff.

The step that matters

Pour the hot syrup slowly into the whipped egg white. Hot syrup partly cooks the egg white proteins, which stabilizes the foam. Pouring it in quickly or without continuous stirring can cause uneven mixing and deflate the foam, so the icing turns out grainy or runny.

“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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