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Dessert

Marshmallow Icing

A sweet icing made from sugar, water, egg whites, marshmallows, butter, icing sugar, vanilla, cocoa, and moistened with coffee or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cocoa powder and coffee work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 541 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Marshmallow Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the marshmallow base

  1. Combine granulated sugar and water in a pot.

  2. Boil until it threads.

  3. Beat in the egg whites for 15 minutes.

  4. Add marshmallows and let them dissolve over hot water.

  5. Beat until stiff.

Make the chocolate butter icing

  1. In a separate bowl, mix butter, icing sugar, vanilla, and cocoa.

  2. Moisten the mixture with coffee or cream to achieve the right consistency.

Finish

  1. Cover the icing with powdered nuts before using.

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. Cocoa powder + coffeetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together541 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Vanilla + nutstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Vanilla + coffeetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,391 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Coffee + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together105 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Sugar and vanilla 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

Granulated sugar
Dissolves in water and cooks into a syrup that sets the icing's texture and sweetness.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the icing its light, stiff structure.
Marshmallows
Melt into the mixture, adding sweetness and a soft, airy body.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich, creamy mouthfeel and a smooth spreadable body.
Icing sugar
Sweetens the buttercream and gives it a fine, smooth texture.
Cocoa powder
Provides chocolate flavour and colour to the icing.

The step that matters

Boil until it threads. Sugar syrup texture depends on how far the water has evaporated and how concentrated the sugar becomes. Stop too early and the icing stays runny; cook too long and it turns hard and grainy.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, butter, vanilla, cocoa powder, coffee):

  1. Cocoafits better
  2. Hazelnutfits better
  3. Almondfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, butter, vanilla, cocoa powder, coffee. 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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