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Dessert

Marshmallow Frosting

A sweet frosting made from sugar, water, egg whites, vanilla, and marshmallows.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Marshmallow Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil sugar and water until the mixture forms threads.

  2. Stir in beaten egg whites and vanilla.

  3. Heat marshmallows and stir them in last.

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

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

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Sugar
Forms a syrup that, boiled to threads, sets the frosting's structure and sweetness.
Egg whites
Whipped into the hot syrup, they add airy foam and body to the frosting.
Marshmallows
Melted in at the end, they add sweetness, softness and a glossy, marshmallow texture.

The step that matters

Boiling the sugar and water to threads. The syrup must reach the right concentration; if it is undercooked the frosting stays runny, and if overcooked it turns 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.

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