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Dessert

Marshmallow Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made from marshmallows, sugar, cream, and orange flower water.

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 Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the marshmallows

  1. Shake off as much powder as possible from the marshmallows.

  2. Wash the marshmallows quickly and cut them into ½‑inch bits using fine scissors.

Make the ice cream

  1. Soak the marshmallow bits in the cream until thoroughly dissolved.

  2. Add the sugar and orange flower water, then mix well.

  3. Freeze the mixture until solid.

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

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

  3. Cream + orangetop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

Marshmallows
Dissolve into the cream to supply sweetness, body and a soft, airy texture.
Cream
Provides fat and richness, giving the frozen mixture a smooth, creamy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and lowers the freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer when frozen.
Orange flower water
Adds a floral aroma that flavours the cream without adding bulk.

The step that matters

Soaking the marshmallow bits in the cream. The marshmallow must fully dissolve into the cream; undissolved pieces stay chewy and make the texture uneven. Cutting the bits small and allowing time helps them dissolve evenly.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Orangethe 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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