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Dessert

Marshmallow Icing

A sweet glaze made from sugar, water, vinegar, egg whites, 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 vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Marshmallow Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil sugar, water, and vinegar together until it threads, about 5-6 minutes.

Make the icing

  1. Stir the hot syrup into the beaten egg whites.

  2. Add marshmallows and return to the stove.

  3. Stir until marshmallows are dissolved.

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 + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 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. Vinegar + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Vinegar and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,922 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

White sugar
Provides sweetness and, once boiled into syrup, the firm body of the icing.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the icing its light, airy structure.
Marshmallows
Add sweetness and softness, melting into the icing to make it smooth and creamy.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that helps stabilize the egg white foam and keeps the syrup from crystallizing.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup until it threads. The sugar concentration set by this boil controls the icing's texture. Stopping too early leaves a runny icing that won't hold its shape, while boiling too long makes it hard and brittle 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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