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Dessert

Marshmallow Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made with heavy cream, marshmallows, sugar, chocolate, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla 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 Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Heat the cream and sugar in a saucepan until the sugar melts.

  2. Cut the marshmallows into pieces and shave or grate the chocolate.

Finish and freeze

  1. Add the marshmallows and chocolate to the hot cream and sugar mixture, stirring well.

  2. Add the vanilla extract and let the mixture cool.

  3. Once cooled, 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. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Heavy cream
Provides fat and richness, giving the ice cream a smooth, creamy texture.
Marshmallows
Add sweetness and body, and their gelatin-like structure helps the frozen texture stay soft.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and lowers its freezing point, keeping the ice cream from freezing rock hard.
Chocolate
Adds fat and bittersweet flavour that stands out against the sweet base.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before freezing. Adding the vanilla and letting the mixture cool fully before freezing matters because a warm base freezes slowly, forming larger ice crystals and a grainy texture.

“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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