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Dessert

Marshmallow Candy

A sweet treat made from brown sugar, cream, walnuts, and marshmallows, cooked and set into squares.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 Candy

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the brown sugar and cream in a saucepan for 8 minutes, stirring constantly.

  2. Stir in the walnuts and marshmallows until well combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered pan.

  4. Mark into squares before it hardens.

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. Walnut + creamtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Sugar + walnuttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,147 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Provides sweetness and the caramel flavour as it boils with the cream.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the candy a softer, creamier texture.
Marshmallows
Melt into the hot mixture to add body, sweetness and a chewy, soft set.
English walnuts
Add crunch and a nutty flavour that contrasts with the soft candy.

The step that matters

Mark into squares before it hardens. Once the mixture cools and sets, it becomes too firm to cut cleanly, so squares must be marked while it is still soft enough to score.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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