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Dessert

Marshmallow Pudding

A gelatin-based dessert made with marshmallows, egg whites, sugar, and cream, set in a mold and served chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Marshmallow Pudding

Why it works: Vanilla and nuts work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 638 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Marshmallow Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatine and egg whites

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 15 minutes.

  2. Pour boiling water over the gelatine and stir on the stove until dissolved.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff and dry.

  4. Gradually add the sugar to the egg whites.

  5. Beat the cooled gelatine into the egg mixture.

  6. Flavor the mixture as desired.

  7. Divide the mixture into two colors (pink or green).

  8. Layer the mixture with nuts, cherries, or fruit in a mold lined with oil paper.

  9. Set the mold on ice to congeal.

Make the marshmallow layer

  1. For the marshmallow syrup, boil sugar and water until it reaches the soft ball stage.

  2. While hot, mash in the marshmallows until dissolved.

  3. Beat the double cream until stiff.

  4. Add the egg whites and dissolved gelatine to the cream.

  5. When the marshmallow syrup is almost cold, pour it over the egg whites and mix the mixture well.

  6. Fold in the whipped cream.

  7. Fold in the chopped pecans.

  8. Put the mixture on ice to congeal.

Serve

  1. Serve in tall champagne glasses topped with pink whipped cream and decorated with roses.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Nuts + creamtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together886 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

Gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when chilled.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the pudding its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps stabilize the whipped egg whites.
Marshmallows
Melt into the hot syrup, adding sweetness and a soft, marshmallowy flavor.
Double cream
Whipped to add richness, moisture and a lighter, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Cool the gelatine before adding it to the egg whites. Gelatine that is still very hot can deflate the whipped egg white foam. Cooled gelatine stays fluid enough to blend in evenly and then sets the mixture as it chills.

Swap the nuts

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, vanilla, cream. 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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