Marshmallows

 

One of my close friends is obsessed with marshmallows. And I mean obsessed (I think if she could, she'd eat them every day). So I really wanted to figure out a way to make her them from scratch and tried numerous recipes. After a few failures, I found a recipe on a great blog (http://nothingbutonions.com/2013/09/marshmallows/) that I have tested and adapted slightly. They taste far better than the basic store-bought versions, and I’m really looking forward to giving these to my friend and seeing her reaction to them.

In the future I will also definitely try making flavored marshmallows, so keep your eyes peeled for those!

Makes 16-20 marshmallows

Ingredients:

• 250g granulated sugar
• 1 egg white
• 12g sachet of powdered gelatin
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• Few drops of red food colouring (optional)
• Equal quantities of cornflour and icing sugar (about 25g of each), mixed, to dust

Method:

      1. Place the sugar and 250ml water in a heavy-based saucepan (heavy-based is better as it helps to control the temperature of the pan, so lowers the chance of burning your marshmallows). Stir - whilst heating gently - until all of the sugar has dissolved.

      2.  Bring the mixture to the boil and place a sugar thermometer in the pan. Keep the mixture boiling until it reaches 122C/250F – this is the hard ball stage. If you don’t have a sugar thermometer (I would highly recommend one for this recipe), you can test the temperature by dipping a spoon into the mixture and placing a drop into some icy water. When you press the drop with your fingers, it will feel like a hard ball.

     3. Whilst the sugar is boiling, dissolve the gelatin in 60ml of hot water.

     4. Once the sugar syrup has reached 122c/250f, turn off the heat and stir in the gelatin. The mixture will bubble up a lot, so be careful.

     5. In a clean, grease-free bowl, whisk the egg white (with an electric whisk) for 3-5 minutes, until soft peaks form. Pour the sugar syrup into the egg whites in a slow, steady stream, constantly whisking. Add the vanilla extract and food colouring. 

     6. Whisk for a further 5 – 10 minutes. You will notice the mixture becomes very thick, so that when the whisk is removed from the mixture, a trail is left behind that is visible for a  few seconds.

Notice the ripple around the whisk - this indicates the
marshmallow is thickening well

     7. Grease a container (e.g a 20x 25cm tub) and scatter over a handful of the icing sugar/cornflour mixture. Tip out any excess flour/sugar. Pour in the marshmallow mixture and leave to set (I refrigerated the marshmallows for 3 hours, which worked well).

     8. Once set (the marshmallow will feel very springy to the touch), dust a surface with icing sugar and cornflour. Carefully pry out the marshmallow. I found this was easiest using a knife to peel the marshmallow away from the sides of the tub.

     9.   Cut into cubes and enjoy! These will keep in an airtight container for up to two weeks.