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Dessert

Marshmallow Fudge

A sweet fudge made with brown sugar, milk, butter, marshmallows, and walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Marshmallow Fudge

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the base

  1. Combine brown sugar and milk in a saucepan.

  2. Boil for about 10 minutes, stirring constantly until gummy.

  3. Add butter and marshmallows.

  4. Beat on the stove until the marshmallows are completely dissolved.

Warm and set

  1. Warm the marshmallows in the oven first until they are very soft.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased pan to set.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,035 recipes

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

  3. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Milk + walnuttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Sweetens the fudge and, cooked with milk, forms the soft, chewy base.
Milk
Dissolves the sugar and adds moisture and richness to the fudge.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer texture.
Marshmallows
Melt into the mixture to add sweetness and a soft, glossy body.

The step that matters

Boil and stir until gummy. Sugar and milk can scorch on the bottom of the pan if not stirred constantly, and the mixture must thicken properly to set well later.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Cocoafits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, butter, meat. 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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