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Marshmallow Icing

A sweet icing made from softened marshmallows, sugar syrup, egg white, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Marshmallow Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place marshmallows in a bowl and set it in hot water for 30 minutes until soft.

  2. In a small pan, combine sugar and enough water to cover it, then bring to a boil.

  3. While the sugar is boiling, beat the egg white until frothy.

Make the icing

  1. Boil the sugar until it reaches the brittle test, then add cream of tartar to the egg white.

  2. Pour the hot syrup over the egg mixture, avoiding drafts, and add the softened marshmallows.

  3. Beat vigorously until the mixture is smooth and velvety.

Finish

  1. Spread the icing quickly on the cake; it will set to a spongy, light texture.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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 white
Whipped into foam to give the icing its airy, light structure.
Granulated sugar
Boiled into a hot syrup that sets and sweetens the icing as it cools.
Marshmallows
Melt into the syrup and egg mixture, adding sweetness and a soft, smooth body.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the egg white, helping it foam and stay stable when whipped.

The step that matters

Pour the hot syrup over the egg mixture slowly. Pouring the syrup in a thin, steady stream while beating keeps it from cooking the egg white into lumps and helps the foam stay stable. Avoiding drafts keeps the foam from collapsing as it cools.

“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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