Home › Desserts-Puddings › Uncooked Marshmallow Loaf
Uncooked Marshmallow Loaf
1/2 lb. marshmallows 1/2 C thin cream ½ lb. dates 1/2 lb. graham crackers 1/2 C peacans or walnuts Cut marshmallows into quarters and drop into thin cream to soften. Meanwhile, pit and cut dates into lengthwise quarters. Roll graham crackers until finely ground, and chop coarsely pecans or walnuts. Work all together into a loaf and shape in a pan two inches deep. Cut when ready to serve. Serve with whipped cream.
This will keep well for sometime in a cool place. Tastes best about three days after it has been made, for then it is all well blended together. Mrs. R. M. Dillon.
An icebox loaf that needs no heat at all — the only real technique is judging the moisture so the loaf slices cleanly rather than crumbling or sagging. Give it the full three days the recipe asks for.
- Thin cream"Thin cream" means light cream, roughly 18-20% fat, or half-and-half at a pinch, not whipping cream. Half a cup is not much liquid against this much fruit and crumb, so watch that the mass holds together under pressure.
- MarshmallowsHalf a pound is about 30 large marshmallows or four heaping cups of miniatures. Miniatures can go in whole and skip the quartering, though quartered large ones soften into stickier ribbons that bind better.
- Graham crackersHalf a pound is roughly 2 to 2¼ cups of fine crumbs, a bit under two sleeves of a modern box. A food processor does in seconds what the rolling pin did; keep a little back in case the mixture turns too wet.
- DatesA pound and a half sounds excessive beside the other quantities but it is the structure of the loaf — roughly 4 cups once pitted and quartered. Use whole pitted Deglet Noor or Medjool rather than the pre-chopped sugar-dusted kind, which are drier and already coated.
- Working it togetherDo this with your hands, lightly dampened, and expect it to be aggressively sticky. Combining the crumbs and nuts with the dates first, then folding in the softened marshmallows, gives a more even loaf than dumping everything in at once.
- The panA 9x5 loaf pan lined with parchment or wax paper, with overhang for lifting; the recipe's "two inches deep" is about pressing the mass into a firm slab rather than a specific tin. Press hard, cover, and refrigerate.
- The three daysThe recipe says it tastes best about three days on, once the crumbs have drawn moisture from the dates and cream and the loaf has blended; cut sooner and it may not slice as cleanly. Wrap well, since it can pick up refrigerator odors.
- YieldRoughly 16 thin slices — it is very sweet and rich, so cut smaller than you would a cake. Whipped cream, as directed, cuts the sugar more than it adds to it.
Uncooked or "icebox" loaves like this one belong to the first half of the twentieth century, when domestic refrigeration and commercially bagged marshmallows and graham crackers found their way into American kitchens. The formula — a starchy crumb, a sticky sweetener, dried fruit and nuts, pressed and chilled — turned up under dozens of names in community cookbooks, and its appeal to a church-supper contributor is obvious: it needs no oven, travels in its own pan, keeps for days, and improves while it waits. Dates did much of the heavy lifting in this genre, since imported boxed dates were cheap and available year-round well before most fresh fruit was. Attribution to a named contributor is standard in community cookbooks, as this one is to Mrs. R. M. Dillon, which is the whole point of a congregational cookbook: the recipe and the reputation traveled together.