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Marsh Mallow Dessert

A gelatin-based dessert made with egg whites, sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla 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 ↓

Marsh Mallow Dessert

Ingredients

Directions

Make the marshmallow

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 10 minutes.

  2. Dissolve the gelatine over boiling water.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  4. Gradually add the sugar while continuing to beat.

  5. Beat in the dissolved gelatine and vanilla.

  6. Cool the mixture in shallow pans.

Serve

  1. Once set, cut into cubes and serve with plain or whipped cream.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 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).

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

Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the marshmallow its airy, light structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps stabilise the whipped egg white foam.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture as it cools, giving it a firm, chewy body.

The step that matters

Beating in the dissolved gelatine. Gelatine must be fully dissolved and cooled slightly before it is beaten in. If it is too hot it can deflate the whipped egg white foam, and if it sets in lumps it will not blend evenly into the mixture.

“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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