This Summer’s Best Ice Cream Upgrade? Marshmallow Fluff

But I am here to praise the marshmallow in its primordial, formless form. Marshmallow creme has a marvelous capacity to adapt to the shape of our shifting desires. Swirl it into a milkshake for a lush consistency and intense vanilla flavor. Short on time to produce a showstopper dinner-party dessert? Artfully dollop some marshmallow creme atop a scoop of ice cream, blast it with a kitchen torch and call it baked Alaska.

This ingredient is as classic as Ivory soap—and, like that product, possessed of a pristine snowy-white visual appeal and a buoyancy both literal and poetical. Returning for a moment to my brand of choice, Marshmallow Fluff, the retro label is pretty great, too.

Marshmallow creme does have its die-hard devotees. One can attend the What the Fluff? festival each September in Somerville, Mass., and Oct. 8 has been designated National Fluffernutter Day in honor of the sandwich that pairs the sumptuous stuff with peanut butter.

My own passion for marshmallow creme dates from—where else?—childhood. I first encountered the Jersey Mud, a sundae endowed with a billowy marshmallow layer, at the late, great Bon-Air soda fountain in Cedarville, Mich., and you can still order one at the Ice Cream Shoppe on the town’s waterfront. If you can’t get there, the recipe here produces a pretty faithful rendition. Go ahead. Enjoy it.

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