Skip to main content
Dessert

Marshmallow Icing

A sweet icing made from sugar syrup, marshmallows, and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Marshmallow Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Dissolve the sugar in water and boil until it reaches a thread stage.

Make the marshmallow base

  1. In a pan set over hot water, warm the marshmallows.

  2. Stir the warm marshmallows into the syrup quickly and beat until smooth.

Finish the icing

  1. Beat the egg whites until light and fluffy.

  2. Pour the marshmallow mixture over the beaten egg whites and beat until cool.

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 + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 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

Granulated sugar
Forms the boiled syrup that gives the icing its structure and sweetness.
Marshmallows
Melt into the syrup to add body, sweetness and a smooth, soft texture.
Egg whites
Whipped to a foam that lightens the icing and gives it volume.

The step that matters

Boiling the sugar syrup to thread stage. Sugar syrup must reach the correct concentration; undercooked syrup leaves the icing runny, while overcooked syrup makes it hard and grainy once it cools.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes