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Dessert

Marshmallow Lozenges

A confection made from boiled sugar, rose water, marshmallow pulp, roots, seeds, and spices, formed into lozenges.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Poppy seed and almond share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 91 recipes. Both carry 3-methylbutanol, which smells malty, whiskey. The science ↓

Marshmallow Lozenges

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. Boil the loaf sugar in rose water until it reaches a solid consistency.

  2. Whisk in the marshmallow pulp off the heat.

  3. Place the mixture over gentle heat, stirring constantly to dry up moisture until a good paste forms.

Shape the lozenges

  1. Pour the paste onto oiled paper.

  2. Roll it out with a rolling pin and cut into lozenges using a tin cutter.

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. Poppy seed + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together91 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

  2. Rose + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Sugar + rosetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,584 recipes

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

  5. Rose + poppy seedtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Loaf sugar
Forms the bulk of the lozenges and sets into a firm, sweet mass as it cools.
Rose water
Dissolves the sugar and carries the floral aroma through the lozenges.
Marshmallow pulp
Its plant mucilage thickens the mixture and gives a soft, smooth body.
Powdered gum tragacanth
A swelling gum that adds body and helps the lozenges hold their shape.

The step that matters

Drying the paste over gentle heat. Stirring constantly until a good paste forms drives off excess moisture. Leftover moisture leaves lozenges sticky and soft, while overheating can scorch the sugar or make them brittle.

Swap the poppy seed

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, rose, almond):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Poppy seedthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, rose, almond. 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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