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Dessert

Marshmallow Candy

A sweet confection made by boiling marshmallows, sugar, cream, and butter, then adding nuts and setting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and nuts work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 284 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Marshmallow Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the mixture

  1. Boil sugar, cream, marshmallows, and butter together for 20 minutes, or until it forms a ball when tested in cold water.

Beat and set

  1. Remove from heat and beat with an egg beater until it begins to thicken.

  2. Add nuts and pour into a pan.

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. Walnut + nutstop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together284 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Nuts + creamtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together886 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Walnut + creamtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Nuts + sugartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,228 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Granulated sugar
Sweetens the candy and, as it boils down, sets into a firm, chewy body when cooled.
Marshmallows
Gelatin and sugar give the candy its soft, elastic body and light texture.
Thin cream
Adds fat that softens the texture and makes the candy smoother and richer.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother mouthfeel and a rich, buttery flavor.
Pecan nuts
Adds crunch that contrasts with the soft, chewy candy.

The step that matters

Boil to the firm-ball stage. The candy sets based on how much water boils off. Under-boiling leaves it soft and sticky, while over-boiling makes it hard and brittle. The cold-water ball test shows when it is ready.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Pistachiofits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Brazil nutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against nuts, sugar, 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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