Recently I digitized a handwritten cookbook that I bought a couple of years ago. There is no name or date written in the book, but based on items enclosed in the book, like newspaper clippings, it appears to date from the 1930s and 1940s.
Some of those clippings were taped onto the pages of the book, including this odd, hard to read recipe for Coffee Fluff.
It’s essentially a mousse made with marshmallows, which makes a certain kind of sense. The sugar in the sweets takes the place of other added sugar in the dessert and some recipes for mousse call for gelatin in addition to their foamy whipped cream or egg whites.
Curious if this was an outlier or a kind of mousse that might have been popular in mid-century America I did a quick search for “marshmallow mousse”. Google yielded 18,000 hits, most of them look like modern recipes.
Next, I took a quick look at some of the cookbooks in my collection. I was surprised to find the exact Coffee Fluff recipe from the clipping in the 1933 Good Housekeeping Cook Book.
Jumping forward to 1950, Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book has a version using orange juice that sounds refreshing, although I haven’t tried it.
I did give Coffee Fluff a try with two changes. Instead of a double boiler I used the microwave to melt the marshmallows and I added 1/2 cup of semisweet chocolate to the marshmallows. You might want to try vegan marshmallows for a vegetarian version.
Coffee Fluff
1/2 lb. marshmallows, cut in small pieces
1 cup hot coffee
1/8 teaspoon slat
1 cup heavy cream, whipped until stiff
1 teaspoon vanilla
Combine chocolate, coffee, and marshmallows in a bowl. Melt in microwave at 1 minute intervals, stirring to make everything is melted and blended together. Fold gently in whipped cream and chill.
The mixture did not get as stiff or fluffy as I’d thought it would, but placed in the freezer it did make a reasonable facsimile of one of my favorite summer dessert cheats - the 2 ingredient ice cream (google it). Letting the hot marshmallow cool a bit more before folding it into the whipped cream might make a fluffier final dessert.
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