Homemade Marshmallows

You read that right. Homemade marshmallows! I saw this recipe originally on Good Eats with Alton Brown and I really wanted to make them but it seemed really complicated and over my head culinarily speaking.

When Sarah announced Vanilla as the ingredient for this round I knew I wanted to use it in bean form since I've never used vanilla beans but knew how to work with them based on what I'd seen on the Food Network. I did a quick Punchfork search and after mulling over several recipes decided I'd take a leap of faith and chose the Pieces of Heaven (homemade marshmallows!).

I read the recipe at least once before I started. This is a good practice, but not something I do regularly. With this recipe I knew things needed to be exact so I made sure my mise en place was ready! I even went to the store for the 2nd time that day to get kosher salt just to be sure everything was as directed.

Here's how I made them:

I started by putting 3 packets of gelatin and 1/2 c of cold water in the stand mixer bowl. I later decided this could be done while the sugar/corn syrup concoction was cooking, but I'm not sure it makes a difference.

I combined the other 1/2 c of water, 1.5 c of granulated sugar, 1 c of light corn syrup and 1 tsp of kosher salt in a sauce pan and placed on medium-high heat, covered, for about 3 minutes. Then uncover and place thermometer in pan and cook until 240-degrees exactly. (At about 225-degrees the temperature stopped increasing, so I went ahead and increased the heat on the stove and soon got to 240.)

While the sugar mixture was cooking, I split 2 vanilla beans and scraped out the seeds.

Once it reached 240-degrees, I removed the pan from the heat and poured it along the side of the stand mixer bowl with the gelatin and water, whisking on low. Once all the sugar mixture was in, I added the vanilla bean seeds and turned the mixer to high for about 12 minutes.

I won't lie, when I looked in the bowl and saw marshmallow fluff whirling around I may or may not have let out an evil cackle! I was doing it! I was making marshmallows in my kitchen!!

Once the fluff reached room temperature and looked adequately fluffy, I scraped it with a lightly oiled scraper into a pan prepared with pan spray and a mix of equal parts corn starch and powdered sugar. I then covered the top of the fluff with more corn starch and powdered sugar.

I let mine sit overnight, but as little as 4 hours will work, too.

After that, I flipped the marshmallow over onto a cutting board and removed the foil.

 

 Using a pizza cutter I cut the marshmallow into strips lengthwise.

I then cut the strips into little marshmallow cubes. I tossed each of the cubes in the corn starch and powdered sugar mixture to cover the stickiness.

TA DA!!

So Mike teases me for eating marshmallows just, but I know for a fact there are others that snack on plain ol' marshmallows, too! Otherwise, why would they make those little 100-calorie packs of mini-marshmallows?! I used to love those back when I thought a calorie was a calorie! (Says the girl who just made a tray of marshmallows...)

Anyway, to keep peace in the marriage (Me: Did you try a marshmallow?! Mike: No, they scare me.) I agreed to make S'mores with the homemade mallows. It's sort of a pain to get the charcoal grill going for just a few marshmallows, so Mike pulled out his blow torch. (If you know Mike, you aren't surprised.)

 

OMG, we're so classy. It worked pretty well and I was happy with the results. I mean, who doesn't love S'mores on a Tuesday night?!