Home › Recipes › Marshmallow Sauce
Marshmallow Sauce
1/2 lb. marshmallows, 1/2 cup water.
Place in double-boiler. When of creamy consistency add 1/4 tablespoon vanilla, and serve.
A three-line recipe that depends almost entirely on temperature control. The double boiler is not optional fussiness — direct heat will scorch the sugar and break the sauce.
- Gentle heat is the hingeKeep the water in the lower pan at a bare simmer and stir until the marshmallows have melted into the water. Too much heat can thin the mixture and then leave it sticky and grainy, which is hard to correct.
- 1/2 lb. of marshmallowsThat is 8 ounces: roughly 32 standard-size marshmallows, or about 4 cups of miniatures. Modern bags are commonly 10 oz or 16 oz, so weigh rather than count.
- 1/4 tablespoon vanillaAn odd unit even for 1900. It works out to 3/4 teaspoon; a full teaspoon is fine and closer to modern taste.
- Marshmallows have changedPeriod marshmallows were gelatin- and egg-white-based rather than built on the corn syrup of today's versions, and are often said to have been less aerated. Modern ones melt readily and firm up again as they cool.
- Consistency"Creamy" means pourable and opaque, like thick cream. If it is stringy, it needs more stirring; if it is stiff, add water a teaspoon at a time over the hot water.
- Yield and servingAbout 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups — enough for six servings. Serve warm over ice cream, poached pears or chocolate pudding; it firms up on standing and reheats over hot water with a splash of water.
- A Baker's additionSince this comes from a chocolate maker's book, the obvious variation is to stir a half-ounce of melted unsweetened chocolate into the finished sauce off the heat.
Choice Recipes was one of the promotional cookbooks issued by Walter Baker & Co. of Dorchester, Massachusetts, the oldest chocolate firm in the United States, and its purpose was to keep the company's cocoa and unsweetened chocolate in circulation among home cooks. A marshmallow sauce belongs there as a partner to chocolate desserts rather than a rival to them. The confection itself takes its name from the marsh mallow plant, Althaea officinalis, whose mucilaginous root was once whipped with sugar to make a soft lozenge; by the time this book appeared, gelatin and egg white had replaced the root entirely and marshmallows were a cheap factory-made staple sold by the pound. That commercial availability is what makes the recipe possible — melting a bought sweet into a sauce is a shortcut that would presumably have been far less practical a generation earlier, when the cook would have had to make the marshmallows first.