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Dessert

Marshmallow Candy

A sweet confection made by boiling sugar, gelatin, and water, then cooling and cutting into pieces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Marshmallow Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the marshmallow

  1. Boil 2 cups sugar and ¼ cup water until it threads.

  2. Dissolve ½ box gelatin in ½ cup cold water and beat into the sugar mixture.

  3. Beat until almost stiff, then cut into squares and place in a dish or square pan 1 inch deep.

Make the candy

  1. In a separate pot, cook 2 cups sugar, 1 tablespoon butter, and 1 cup water until it reaches the soft ball stage.

  2. Pour the mixture onto a greased marble surface.

  3. When slightly cool, work it to a cream with a wooden paddle and cut into small pieces.

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 + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Butter + minttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Sugar + minttop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Provides sweetness and, when cooked to a set stage, the structure of the candy.
Gelatin
Sets the beaten syrup into a light, springy, elastic texture.
Butter
Adds richness and softens the texture of the candy.

The step that matters

Cooking the sugar to the soft ball stage. The final texture depends on how concentrated the sugar syrup becomes. Stopping too early leaves the candy soft and sticky, while cooking too far makes it hard and brittle.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter. 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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