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Dessert

Marshmallow Icing

A thick, white icing made from beaten egg whites, sugar, flavoring, and grated apple.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Marshmallow Icing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  2. Add sugar and flavoring to taste.

  3. Stir in the grated apple.

  4. Continue stirring for at least 30 minutes until the icing is very thick and white.

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. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Egg + appletop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,461 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that gives the icing its light, airy structure.
Tart apple
Adds moisture and a bright acidity that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the icing and helps stabilise the whipped egg white foam.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to a stiff froth. Egg whites must be whipped until they hold stiff peaks, since the foam traps air and gives the icing its volume. Under-whipped whites stay runny and the icing will not thicken properly. Any trace of fat or yolk in the bowl also prevents the whites from whipping fully.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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