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Marshmallow Fudge Filling
Melt one half pound marshmallows in double boiler and add to Fudge Filling.
A one-line variation that assumes you already have the book's Fudge Filling on the stove. The whole trick is heat management: both components must be warm at the same moment or the mixture seizes.
- Half a pound of marshmallowsThat is 8 oz, roughly 32 modern large marshmallows or about 4 cups of miniatures. Miniatures melt faster and more evenly; snip large ones in half if that is what you have.
- The double boiler is not optionalMarshmallows scorch and turn stringy over direct heat. Keep the water below a simmer and stir often; they should slump into a smooth cream rather than brown at the edges.
- Combine while both are warmAdd the melted marshmallow to the fudge filling while the filling is still warm and pourable. Marshmallow added to cooled fudge tends to string and set into rubbery threads that are hard to beat smooth.
- Expect a looser fillingEight ounces of marshmallow adds volume and slows setting. Spread it between the layers promptly while it is still soft, and let the assembled cake stand before cutting.
- Period marshmallowsMarshmallows of this date were commonly sold loose from bulk boxes and were likely softer than today's shelf-stable ones, which are dusted with a starch and sugar mixture. A little hot water in the double boiler helps modern ones melt smoothly.
- Marshmallow creme insteadMarshmallow creme can be used in place of melted marshmallows and needs no real melting; warm it briefly and stir it in. Quantities are not equivalent by weight, so judge by consistency.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; the amount depends entirely on the quantity of Fudge Filling it is added to.
Lowney's Cook Book was published in 1907 under the name of Maria Willett Howard for the Walter M. Lowney Company, a Boston chocolate manufacturer, and it exists to put the firm's cocoa and baking chocolate into as many recipes as possible. This entry catches marshmallow at an interesting moment: the confection had, by a shift generally traced to the closing decades of the nineteenth century, moved from a laborious hand-whipped sweet made with gum arabic or marshmallow root to a gelatin-based candy, and American cooks began treating it as an ingredient rather than a finished sweet in fillings like this one and later the icebox desserts of the 1920s. The recipe's brevity is itself a period signature: it assumes the reader is working straight through the chapter and has the Fudge Filling already in hand, so the variation needs only one sentence.