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Marshmallow Pudding à la Stanley
½ pound marshmallows 1 cup heavy cream ½ teaspoon vanilla 1/4 cup candied cherries ½ cup English walnut meats 2 tablespoons powdered sugar Soak cherries in rum to cover one hour, then cut in pieces. Cut walnut meats and marshmallows in small pieces. Whip cream, add sugar and vanilla, fold in remaining ingredients. Mould and chill.
A whipped-cream icebox pudding from the era when marshmallows were a fashionable dessert ingredient rather than a campfire one. It sets by chilling alone, so proportions matter more than technique.
- The hinge: cut the marshmallows small and work coldNothing is added to set this — no extra gelatin, egg or starch — so the pudding holds its shape on the strength of the marshmallows themselves, which soften against the cream and firm up again when chilled. Cut them into pea-sized pieces with scissors dipped in cold water, and keep the cream and bowl cold so it does not slacken while you fold.
- That marshmallow quantity1½ pounds of marshmallows to a single cup of cream is a very stiff ratio by modern taste, and may be a misprint for ½ pound. If you want something spoonable rather than dense and confection-like, start at 8 oz and judge from there; the original as written yields a firm, sweet block.
- Powdered sugarIn this period "powdered sugar" often meant a finely ground grade of granulated sugar rather than the cornstarch-cut confectioners' sugar that dominates today. Either works in whipped cream; confectioners' will make it marginally more stable.
- Marshmallows have changedMarshmallows of this period were softer and less aerated than today's, and were cast in starch moulds rather than extruded. Modern marshmallows are drier and springier, so they tend to stay more distinct in the finished pudding rather than melting into it.
- Heavy creamUse cream at 36% fat or above and whip only to soft-medium peaks. Fully stiff cream will break when you fold in a pound and a half of sticky marshmallow pieces.
- English walnutsSimply common walnuts, as distinguished from the American black walnut, which is far more assertive and would overwhelm this. Toasting and cooling them first is a modern improvement the book does not call for.
- The rum soakAn hour in rum barely penetrates candied cherries; drain them well and pat dry, or the liquid will streak the cream grey-pink. The drained rum can go into the cream in place of some of the vanilla.
- Moulding and chillingLine a loaf tin or a mould of at least two quarts with plastic wrap for a clean turn-out, and chill at least 4 hours, preferably overnight. The full quantity is very large and very rich; cut thin slices and expect it to stretch well past eight servings.
Marshmallow confections take their name from Althaea officinalis, the marsh mallow, whose mucilaginous root was once boiled with sugar to make a soothing paste; by the time this book was written, gelatin and gum arabic had largely displaced the plant, and marshmallows were a cheap commercial candy sold by the pound. American cooks treated them as a pantry ingredient, floated on cocoa, or, as here, folded cold into whipped cream to make an unbaked "pudding" that needed only an icebox. The "à la Stanley" tag follows the period habit of naming dishes for hotels, chefs or patrons; such attributions were freely borrowed and are rarely traceable to a documented person. What the recipe really records is the convenience of the icebox: a dessert that requires no cooking at all, only cold, and that a cook could assemble in fifteen minutes and forget until dinner.