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Dessert

Marshmallow Filling and Icing

A sweet filling and icing made from sugar, egg whites, marshmallows, vanilla, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Marshmallow Filling and Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. In a saucepan, combine the sugar with enough cold water to dissolve it and boil until it threads from the spoon; do not stir while boiling.

Make the icing

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff. Add a small amount of cream of tartar and beat again.

  2. Slowly pour the boiling syrup into the stiff egg whites while beating quickly with a wire whisk until stiff enough to pile up.

Assemble and decorate

  1. Spread the mixture between two layers of cake.

  2. Cut all but 16 marshmallows in half with a sharp knife. Place the cut marshmallows in the filling of the cake.

  3. Ice the top and sides of the cake.

  4. Place the 16 marshmallows on top, four in each direction.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. 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 icing its light, stiff structure.
Granulated sugar
Boiled into a syrup that sets and sweetens the icing as it cools.
Marshmallows
Add soft, chewy sweetness and body to the filling and topping.
Cream of tartar
Stabilises the whipped egg whites so the foam holds its shape.

The step that matters

Slowly pour the boiling syrup into the stiff egg whites while beating. Pouring the hot syrup slowly while beating keeps it from cooking the egg whites in lumps and lets the foam stay smooth and stable. Pouring too fast or stopping the mixer can cause the icing to collapse or turn grainy.

“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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