Amanda and I made homemade marshmallows after seeing the recipe on Good Eats (link) . It looked really simple on the show, but it always does. I couldn’t take anymore studying last night so we made them to unwind. For the most part it turned out to be very easy but was a bit messy.

This is water and gelatin which creates the structure of the marshmallow.

This is water, sugar, and corn syrup so basically it was just sugar water. This forms that base of the marshmallow. We needed to boil this to get to the correct concentration. According to the recipe this is 240 degrees and after it reached this temperature we could mix it with the gelatin.

After I pored the syrup into the gelatin (very slowly and carefully because I didn’t want to get 240 degree sticky syrup on me) we had to whip the solution in order to add more air to it. So I kicked up the Kitchen Aid mixer up to high (the first time I have ever done this) and left it alone for twelve minutes. It was interesting to listen to because at the start the mixer was only moving around a liquid but you could hear the difference after the marshmallows started to thicken.

So twelve minutes later and it has gained signification volume and is ready to be moved into containers.

Amanda wanted to have mini marshmallows so we put the mixture into a baggy and spread it out onto sheet pans. For anyone not familiar with this trick you can make a pastry bag by cutting out one corner on a zip lock bag. Then when you are all done you can just throw it away (wasteful I know). We used a piping tip for this step but we don’t think it was large enough because it was very difficult to push out the marshmallows.

I wanted normal size marshmallows so I put half the mixture into a container. The marshmallows needed to wait overnight so they could cool and harden. They are much better than store bought marshmallows but WAY more messy.

The final product.

Enjoying it. Overall, the marshmallows were worth it. The clean up has really sucked and I’m waiting a couple days before I try cleaning out the bowel because it’s still so sticky. I think they taste MUCH better than store bought (but homemade usually does) and they don’t break up as quickly as commercial marshmallows do in hot chocolate. I don’t know that the quality of these are any better than the store bought brands (they must be because they don’t last as long) but I think the extra effort and cost was worth it. The other downside is that I don’t usually cook ANYTHING with marshmallows so I will have to make something like Rice Krispies treats.