Thursday, May 8, 2008

My First Marshmallows!

Making marshmallows seems to be all the rage in the baking/dessert-making blogging community these days. Or perhaps just on the ones I happen to read? Whatever the case, I’ve been wanting to try my hand at it for quite awhile now, and I finally got around to it last week. It’s a pretty simple process, though it does take a good deal of time. But I really enjoyed it, and definitely plan to do it again soon :-)



As a base, I used the recipe for basic vanilla marshmallows found here: http://www.browniepointsblog.com/2006/04/15/basic-vanilla-marshmallows/

To flavor them, I added about 4-5 drops of pure peppermint oil to the water/vanilla mixture before sprinkling the gelatin over it. I would recommend using all of the vanilla called for by the recipe; the flavored oil should be an addition, not a substitution. I also swirled green food coloring through them to make them a bit more festive, and rolled the sides in granulated vanilla sugar (instead of plain powdered sugar) to add a little crunch and extra flavor.

And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: the pictures! :-P

Boiling the sugar syrup:

Very beginning of the whipping process; right after I added the syrup to the gelatin:

Midway through the whipping process (about 5 minutes in):

End of whipping process (about 10 minutes):

Freshly poured slab, smoothed with an oiled offset spatula:

Beginning the swirling process:

Swirling completed:

Slab flipped over and dusted with powdered sugar for cutting:

The biscuit cutter I used to make the rounds:

The cutting process:

Connect 4, anyone?

The final product!




2 comments:

hi!monkey said...

ooh! will you be moving on to chocolate marshmallows next?

Alia said...

i have big marshmallow plans for this weekend...stay tuned! ;-)