I know I’m clumsy and prone to getting tangled up in various disasters, but I still thought it was a great idea to try making homemade marshmallows this year. Candy-making is a tricky thing. Temperatures need to be precise, ingredients need to be measured very accurately, and even the ambient humidity in the room can ruin a good batch of candy. It’s not surprising that it took many, many failed batches before I finally perfected my marshmallows.
I started with this recipe from Cookies For Everyone!. The first few batches I heated the syrup too hot – I had some thermometer issues** – and the marshmallows were all flat and chewy. Then I realized the water I was soaking the gelatin in was too warm while at the same time my syrup was not hot enough. Those ones were basically a meringue (so if you need a passable recipe for an egg-less meringue I can totally hook you up). Then, after reading Alton Brown’s marshmallow recipe it all came together.
Pour gelatin into cold water.
It looks weird.
Put corn syrup, superfine sugar, water, and salt into a sauce pan. Let it simmer on medium-high heat. Don’t stir it!
Let it boil for seven or eight minutes, until your candy thermometer reads about 240°F (soft ball stage).
Pour the hot hot syrup into your wrinkly gelatin in a thin stream, then crank that mixer up to full.
After a few minutes it’ll start to look white and fluffy. Let it keep going for about ten or twelve minutes.
Get your mix-ins ready. These are for my hot buttered rum flavored marshmallows.
In the last minute of whipping add in your add-ins. You might need to scrape the sides a bit.
Pour it into a dish and let it sit at room temperature for about five hours.
Once the marshmallow mix is set give it a nice dusting of powdered sugar, cornstarch, or, in this case, cinnamon.
Plop it out of the dish and onto a cutting board or cookie sheet. Or your counter top, whatever. Use a knife or pizza cutter to cut the marshmallows.
Sift some more powdered sugar or cornstarch into a big bowl with a lid.
Toss ‘em around in the big bowl of sugar.
I let them set for a bit longer before packing them away. Once you can easily handle them without getting sticky, EAT!
I made four kinds for our workplace potluck.
Hot buttered rum, coffee, cherry, vanilla
As well as a vat of cocoa, some Reddi-Wip, chocolate sprinkles and crushed candy canes.
Probably going to fall into a sugar coma now. So here’s my recipe:
Basic marshmallow recipe
- 1 1/2 cups cold water, divided
- 4 envelopes (or 4 tablespoons) unflavored gelatin
- 3 cups superfine sugar
- 1/4 cup light corn syrup
- 1 teaspoon salt
- flavoring of choice *
- powdered sugar for dusting
- Pour 3/4 cup water in the bowl of a mixer. Sprinkle in gelatin and let sit while you make the syrup.
- Place sugar, corn syrup, salt and remaining water in a saucepan and bring to a boil at medium-high heat. Let it get to soft ball stage (about 240°F).
- With mixer on low speed carefully add hot syrup to gelatin mixture in a long, thin stream.
- Beat on high for about 12 minutes, until stiff peaks form.
- Beat in flavorings and colors.
- Pour into greased 9-by-13 inch glass baking dish. Let stand at room temperature until firm – about five hours.
- Sift powdered sugar on to cookie sheet. Invert pan on to cookie sheet. Cut into squares or shapes. Dust with sugar.
*Flavor options
Vanilla
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Buttered Rum
2 teapsoons butter flaovred extract
1 teaspoon rum flavored extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla flavored extract
8 – 10 drops yellow food coloring
Dust with cinnamon
Coffee
Replace water with strong brewed coffee (make sure it’s cold before you add the gelatin)
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Cherry
Chop the cherries from a 10 oz jar of maraschino cherries in a blender. Reserve syrup, add to taste.
** OK, thermometer story. I had a simple candy thermometer (
like this). I completely misjudged the depth of my saucepan and the tip ended up resting on the bottom of the pan. The temperature wasn’t rising, so I just left it in there, thinking it still had a ways to go. Of course, it had broken from the heat, but I couldn’t tell. Something like twenty minutes goes by and it’s still barely reaching 150° so I figure something must be wrong with the thermometer and continue on my way making marshmallows. I made that batch, kept it set aside and made a second batch.
When it was time to clean I picked it up and noticed what looked like hardened candy on the outside of the thermometer. I figured I could just scrape it off since it was cooled and hardened. Turns out it was in fact bulging and misshapen glass (how hot did that pan get‽). As I scratched it with my nail little glass shards shot out, cutting my fingers, and the red liquid inside started oozing out.
Husband and I freaked the f**k out. We were positive we were getting poisoned – and I had it on my cut fingers! He started to feel nauseated and I thought my hands were turning purple. We called poison control. The lovely woman who helped us took our symptoms and other information and said she had to transfer us to a specialist. We were convinced we were going to die by this point.
The specialist gets on the phone and asks “What kind of thermometer, again?”
“A candy thermometer, glass tube, red liquid inside.”
“You’re fine. They don’t put mercury in thermometers any more. The red stuff is ethanol and the fumes sometimes make people nauseated.”
I felt like a huge moron, and we all laughed. I bought a digital thermometer the next day.
