Marshmallows

The more time I spend in the kitchen, the more I figure out that a lot of the foods I buy at the market are overpriced, tasteless, and full of stuff I don’t want in my body. I couldn’t believe it the first time I figured out how to bake bread. The loaves coming out of my oven were warm and heavenly dripping with butter. The loaves I still brought home from the store….began to taste like metal. And then I figured out that buying *real* bread from the market (fresh, made with wholesome ingredients) was going to cost me $6 a loaf .

I slowly began realizing that just about everything I could buy from the market, I could make at home. Except I could skip all the pharmaceutical acronyms and anything else I didn’t want in my food. I’m not saying I don’t ever buy the processed product. I’m just saying….I don’t have to.

So I made marshmallows recently. And no, I didn’t go dig up my marshmallow roots and extract the sap (but don’t put that past me). In fact, I didn’t even use a substitute for corn syrup (*gasp!*). The great thing about making this sort of thing from scratch is….I don’t make it from scratch often enough to worry about it. I figure it’s like fast food. As long as it’s not a daily diet, I’m probably going to live through it.

I’ve made marshmallows before, and this recipe was definitely easier. And yes, I printed out and read all 58 pages. There are a lot of variations, including different sweeteners and so forth. I would love to try using rosewater for a sweet pink and flavor someday. This time, I just went “basic”.

After preparing a 9×13 inch pan with powdered sugar, I put 1/2 cup water and 3 TB unflavored gelatin into the bowl of my mixer. Do NOT use beef gelatin! Unless you want your marshmallows to taste like beef. Which my first batch did. Y-U-C-K!!!

In a pot, I put 2 cups sugar, 2/3 cup corn syrup, and 1/4 cup water. I heated and stirred the mixture until it hit 250 degrees on my thermometer.

Then I ran the mixture on low speed while I drizzled in the hot mixture from the pot. I added 1/4 tsp salt and turned the mixer on as high as I could (at an 8) without splattering boiling liquid around. The plastic wrap helped keep the splats contained while the mixture began to increase in volume.

It’s neat watching it start to fluff up! This whole process is quicker than a trip to the store!

I knew it was done once it all looked like marshmallow cream. At the end, I added 1 TB vanilla (ok, the vanilla was homemade, so that’s good, right?). I think the whole mixing process took about 7 minutes or so.

Then I poured the mixture into my prepared pan and let it sit overnight.

Do you think I’d put this spoon into the sink without licking it all off first?

The next morning I cut the slab into strips with my scissor-knife, and then into cubes. Powdered sugar helped it not be too sticky, but it took a little bit of patience.

I dredged the cubes in powdered sugar. No more sticky marshmallows! And ready for s’mores, eating out of hand, or putting into gift bags with a ribbon for whatever friend *happens* to drop by.

Yeah, they were delicious. And they didn’t last long enough to go stale, either. I bet if we did the hard work and learned to create all sorts of goodies from scratch instead of easily and carelessly piling them into our grocery carts, we certainly wouldn’t overeat any of them! I guess I better figure out how to make chocolate next (kidding! I think…)