Out Of Gift Ideas This Christmas? Try Some Homemade Marshmallows

INTRODUCTION

Home made marshmallows is not in the agenda of my baking/cooking adventures. Somehow, when Ms. Mary Ellen Seavey posted her beautiful Marshmallows in my Facebook Group (Food Bloggers and Foodies United), it immediately caught my attention. Her marshmallows looked so attractive and I told her I wanted to prepare these marshmallows. She assured me that this is a tested recipe and encouraged me to try. One hour after I “digested” her post here, I started my trial on making the marshmallow. I am happy that on my first attempt, I managed to make my marshmallows.

I have slightly modify her recipe by the usage of Pandanus or Screw pine paste. I like the colour and the flavour. For red and white, I have added vanilla flavour to it. It turn out to be a rather nice design.

Wouldn’t it be nice while learning how to make this childhood candy, lets learn together something about this candy. Per Wikipedia:

“Marshmallow is a confection that, in its modern form, typically consists of sugar and/or corn syrup, water, and gelatine, whipped to a spongy consistency, moulded into small cylindrical pieces, and coated with corn starch. Some marshmallow recipes call for eggs. This confection is the modern version of a medicinal confection made from Althaea officinalis, the marshmallow plant.Marshmallow probably came first into being as a medicinal substance, since the mucilaginous extracts come from the root of the marshmallow plant, Althaea officinalis, which were used as a remedy for sore throats. Concoctions of other parts of the marshmallow plant had medical purposes as well.The root has been used since Egyptian antiquity in a honey-sweetened confection useful in the treatment of sore throat.The later French version of the recipe, called pâte de guimauve (or “guimauve” for short), included an egg white meringue and was often flavoured with rose water. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshmallow)”

From the above definition, it is rather clear that ingredients of marshmallow preparation are rather simple comprising syrup and gelatine.

WHAT IS REQUIRED

Recipe adapted from : Marshmallows

Servings: a 9” x 13” x 1” tray of marshmallows – no. of pieces will depend on how big you cut it.

3 cups of granulated sugar
1 1/4 cups of golden syrup or light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon of salt
16 gelatine sheets (or 3 tablespoons plus 1.5 teaspoons of gelatine powder or 4 gelatine packets)
Adequate sugar powder or cocoa powder for dusting
1 1/2 cups of water divide equally into 2 portion (1 portion equal to 3/4 cups)
Permitted food flavourings and/or colourings

Others

Oven thermometer/candy thermometer
9”x 13” container (baking tin or casserole dish)
Parchment/baking paper
A stand mixer

STEPS OF PREPARATION

Use one portion of cold water (3/4 cups) and put it in a whisking bowl. Cut the gelatine sheets into smaller pieces and soaked the sheets/gelatine powder in the cold water. It will gradually soften and slightly expands.

Get ready a 9” x 13” baking tray or casserole dish. Place a piece of baking paper with about 2” extra from each side as collar. Lightly grease the baking paper with cooking oil or cooking spray.

In a sauce pan, put the other 3/4 cups of water. Add golden or light corn syrup, salt and castor sugar. Bring the syrup to boil under medium heat. In between, stir until all the sugar dissolved.

Let it simmer without stirring until when an oven thermometer or candy thermometer inserted, it registers a temperature of 115 degree Celsius. Take the hot syrup from the stove and gradually pour the syrup into the whisking bowl. Start with low speed until all the syrup are added. Once added, gradually increase the speed to high.

Beat using maximum speed until the syrup is at firm peak. It will take at least about 10 minutes. Divide the marshmallows into 3 portion. For one portion, add in the Pandanus or screw pine flavouring and for the other 2 portions, add in vanilla essence. For the 2 portions that have vanilla, add red permitted food colouring to one of the portion. (note that this step is optional if you want it to be original marshmallows).

Fill the greased baking tin or casserole in your desired pattern. For me, i have my first layer as white, second layer green and third layer pink. Let the marshmallows rest for at least 3 hours before cutting with a sharp knife. For my case, I noted that overnight resting is easier for cutting. Dust your marshmallow using your prefer ingredients such as icing sugar or cocoa powder or sugar sprinkles.

CONCLUSION

I concurred with Mary that it is almost not possible to use hand whisking as it will require at 10 minutes of continuous whisking. Therefore, to make this, a stand mixer is deemed absolutely. After preparing this, I would think there are a lot of variations. If you have strawberry essence, you can prepare strawberry marshmallows; if you like chocolate marshmallows, may be addition of cocoa emulco is a good alternative.

All this while, I seldom eat marshmallow on its own. I like to put it in my breakfast drinks… The sweetness of two pieces of marshmallows is just nice for a cup of breakfast drink. However, if you want to eat it as a sweet, for Asian taste, you can consider reducing 10%-20% of the sugar used and that very much depends on your sugar tolerance level.

This is a good and recommendable recipe. It is nice to have some homemade marshmallows to entertain your guest. Try making this marshmallow and surprise your guest this coming Christmas or Chinese New Year. Not forgetting to support the original recipe provider, Ms. Mary Ellen Seavay by supporting her Facebook Page or her blog here. Thanks to her generosity in sharing this recipe.

Hope you like the post today. Cheers and have a nice day.

I am submitting this to the “Baby Sumo’s Christmas Recipes Collection 2013“ event which is hosted by Baby Sumo of Eat Your Heart Out.

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