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Dessert

Marshmallow Pudding

A light dessert made with whipped egg whites, sugar, gelatin, vanilla, and pecans, served with custard and blackberry juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Marshmallow Pudding

Why it works: Vanilla and blackberry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 253 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Marshmallow Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the marshmallow

  1. In a large bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.

  2. Gradually add the sugar and dissolved gelatin, continuing to beat for 20 minutes or longer.

  3. Flavor with vanilla and color one part with fruit coloring or chocolate if desired.

Make the custard and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, make a custard with the egg yolks.

  2. Fold the chopped pecans into the custard.

  3. Serve the marshmallow pudding with the custard and drizzle with blackberry juice.

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 + blackberrytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together253 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Vanilla + pecanstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,691 recipes

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

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

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

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 traps air, giving the marshmallow its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the marshmallow and helps stabilize the whipped foam.
Quick gelatin
Sets the whipped foam so the marshmallow holds its shape.
Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the custard with richness and body.
Chopped pecans
Add crunch and nutty flavor to the custard.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites and sugar with gelatin. Egg whites must reach soft peaks before sugar and gelatin are added, and the mixture must be beaten long enough to form a stable foam. Under-beaten foam will collapse and fail to set into a light marshmallow texture.

Swap the pecans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, gelatin, vanilla, chocolate, blackberry):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Hazelnutfits about as well
  4. Pecansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, gelatin, vanilla, chocolate, blackberry. 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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