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Marshmallow Filling

A sweet filling made from marshmallows, sugar, egg whites, and gum arabic.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Marshmallow Filling

Why it works: Vanilla and sugar 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 Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gum arabic

  1. Soak the gum arabic in cold water.

  2. Dissolve the gum arabic over low heat.

  3. Strain the dissolved gum arabic.

Make the filling

  1. Add the sugar.

  2. Cook the mixture in a double boiler for 30 minutes or until thick like honey.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  4. Add the vanilla and softened marshmallows.

  5. Mix the marshmallow mixture into the double boiler.

  6. Beat the mixture until thick and spongy.

Cool and assemble

  1. Let the mixture cool.

  2. Spread the cooled filling between layers of cake.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 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 + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

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

Vanilla and sugar 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

Gum arabic
Thickens the syrup and stabilizes the foam so the filling holds its shape.
Egg whites
Whipped to a stiff foam that gives the filling its light, spongy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and thickens it into a syrup that sets as it cools.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture in a double boiler until thick like honey. Gentle, indirect heat lets the gum arabic and sugar thicken evenly without scorching. Cooking too hot or too briefly leaves the filling runny or grainy.

“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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