Sweetening In Spring - Homemade Marshmallows

4/13/2014

Hey guys! I'm Elle, Lees big older sister and I feel honoured to guest post on July and Lee's blog. Usually I don't blog (I like to spend my time with architecture, reading, knitting, photography and watching tv series) but I want to share the adventure of making marshmallows. Yup, marshmallows.
I love marshmallows. They are sweet and sticky. A few weeks ago I was mentally preparing myself for the Veronica Mars movie * and I stumbled across this. I thought I should try to make my own marshmallows in celebration of the movie. (You may wonder what connects a tv show about a teenage detective with marshmallows. In that case you should watch it. If you don't wonder: you should also watch it.) **
Ok, enough of that. Back to the marshmallows. I got all excited about the idea so I searched the internet for an recipe and found this one. It's pretty easy and you won't need fancy ingredients. It doesn't contain egg but gelantin so it's not vegetarian. (If you're interested in vegan 'marshmallows' follow this link.)
So, spring is finally here and it's almost Easter again. The shops are full of chocolate and … yeah, basically chocolate. But who says you can't eat marshmallows? They are dateless. You can eat them during the summer (with strawberries or at a bonfire) and during the winter (with hot chocolate) and it's very easy to dye them. So, why don't make colourful marshmallows in the form of easter eggs?
So, here are the thing's you'll need:
  • icing sugar (250g and 2 tablespoons)
  • cornstarch
  • two packets of vanilla sugar
  • two packets of powedered gelantin (18g)
  • food colouring (optional)
  • water
  • a little bit of butter/shortening
  • a baking dish or a deep backing tray (in the recipe I linked the recommended size is 30x15cm, I used two smaller ones)
  • a mixer
  • a small pot and two bowls
  • cookie cutters (optional)

 Some tips before we start:
  • I'd advise you against making marshmallows if you have got a cold. You really should stay in bed and drink a lot of tea when you've got a cold – but apart from that a single sneeze could be very disastrous. There is a lot of icing sugar involved.
  • Don't wear black clothes! Just don't do it! Because … well … icing sugar...
Grease the baking dish (or baking tray or whatever you use) with a little bit of butter. Mix 2 tbsp of icing sugar with 2 tbsp of cornstarch. Now dust the baking dish with the mix (use a sifter). It's important to dust every little corner or your marshmallows are going to stick in the form. Be careful: Don't sneeze!
Mix 250g icing sugar and 2 packets of vanilla sugar (you can use real vanilla too). Put it aside (but not out o reach) with the food colouring.
Dissolve two packets of gelantin in 150mL water. Heat it up (I think the instruction on the packets says you shouldn't boil it … so just heat it up). In some supermarkets there's also gelantin which doesn't need the heat. I don't know if it works but you could try :)
Now stir the gelantine-water in the vanilla sugar mixture (with the mixer … except you've got some kind of super power and are able to stir very very fast with a wire whisk). Now put in the food colouring. I used paste colours (like that). I used it for macarons before but I guess it works for everything. If you use liquid colour you should reduce the amount of water.
Now mix the whole thing until it sets and gets fluffy – but don't wait to long or it gets to sticky.
Pour the mixture into the dustet baking dish. Try to spread it out evenly. Put it aside and do whatever you want to do for the next hour. Colour eggs. Take a walk. Do the dishes. Clean the kitchen. No, wait, don't clean the kitchen yet!
After one hour the mixture should be … marshmallow-y. Dust the surface and a sheet of baking paper. Turn the marshmallow thing out on the paper and cut it into small pieces. Or big pieces. Whatever you want. You can use a cookie cutter or cut free forms (like easter eggs). It's easier if you dust the cutter with the sugar-cornstarch powder and clean it from time to time. Otherwise it get's really sticky.
Now dust the marshmallows on every side and put them in an air-tight container.
That's it. Now you've got marshmallows. I tried this only once so I didn't have the opportunity to try some things out.
  • You could try to make multi-coloured marshmallows by making to or more different mixtures and put them into the form together.
  • You could substitute the water for juice (or maybe lemonade?). So you'l have natural flavour and colour. Be creative!
  • Unfortunately you can't really roast them. They melt really fast on the inside but don't caramelise on the outside.
  • I wonder if it's possible to put the mixture into a praline mould. But I think it could be quite difficult to get them out.

 So. Happy Easter!
* - Although I only started watching Veronica Mars in 2011 I managed to rewatch the show four or five times. There's only one show I may have spent more time with – Doctor Who.
** - Not kidding. It's a great show. It mixes teenage detectives with film noir and high school drama. It has got a sassy heroine, edgy charakters and a thrilling plot.

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1 Comments

  1. Unknown13. April 2014 um 11:31

    Hallo :) euer Blog ist wirklich KLASSE !! Habe euch zu meiner Liste hinzugefügt & freue mich schon riesig auf neue Posts :) das Rezept muss ich unbedingt ausprobieren <3
    wenn ihr Lust habt könnt ihr ja auch mal auf meinem Blog vorbei schauen http://fliegteintraum.blogspot.de/
    Alles Liebe
    Julia <3

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