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Dessert

Marshmallow Cream

A layered dessert made with gelatin, sugar, egg whites, nuts, chocolate, cherries, and vanilla, served with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Marshmallow Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 5 minutes, then dissolve it in boiling water.

  2. Add sugar and cool the mixture, but do not chill.

Whip and divide

  1. Beat the egg whites and gradually add the gelatine and sugar mixture while beating constantly.

  2. Divide the mixture into three parts.

Flavour the layers

  1. Color the first part pink, then add chopped nuts and vanilla extract.

  2. To the second part, add melted chocolate and vanilla extract.

  3. To the third part, add chopped cherries and lemon extract.

Mold and serve

  1. Mold the mixture in a square mold, allowing each layer to harden slightly before adding the next.

  2. Serve in slices with whipped cream.

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. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Nuts + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Nuts + chocolatetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they give the cream its light, airy structure.
Gelatine
Sets the whipped mixture so the layers hold their shape when sliced.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps stabilise the whipped foam.
Melted chocolate
Adds chocolate flavour and colour to the middle layer.

The step that matters

Adding the gelatine to the egg whites. The gelatine must be warm and liquid but cooled, and added slowly while beating constantly. If it is too hot it can deflate the foam, and if it is added in a lump or allowed to set it will leave streaks and uneven texture.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, nuts, vanilla, chocolate, 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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