8.14.2009

Marshmallows, Fer Reals

I mentioned on Twitter and Facebook that I had made homemade raspberry marshmallows. Needless to say, it drew attention.

The recipe I used is from here (excellent food blog, by the way). I did a half batch and pureed raspberries instead of strawberries. I also used only powdered/confectioner's sugar for the dusting. (On a previous occasion, I tried the sugar blended with rice flour like they have in the recipe, but I found it to be a little to dry/gritty. Perhaps the rice flour I was using wasn't a fine enough grind, but ultimately, the powdered sugar does great, so I'm sticking with that from now on.)
Here's a picture of the block o' marshmallow, before cutting:
And here's in progress (I bought the big pizza cutter specifically for this purpose):
The half batch makes a little bit too few. You get to share, but only with one group. Sharing with multiple groups leaves everyone feeling shorted. However, a whole batch makes a little bit too many and feels like it takes forever to cut up.
Last week, I had made vanilla marshmallows (with the aforementioned rice flour and sugar dusting), a whole batch, and it went over quite well. I used the Mexican vanilla that Michelle gave me and the excellent flavor really came through.
I brought in both flavors to the office and both were greatly appreciated, though I got a bit of a scare. My boss, one of the principals, came over and sat down near my desk and opened with, "I need to share two conflicting complaints..."
Oh, geez. I thought. I knew it had to happen eventually. Nothing is ever perfectly happy all the time and I know I have some flaws I'm working on...
"First, you took the raspberry marshmallows home. And second, that you brought them both in." Whew! (I took the raspberry ones home, by the way, so that I can share them with family this weekend. :D)

There were a few questions the last time I mentioned these:
1. The recipe is really easy, but you must have a stand mixer with a whip attachment. (in theory, you could try a hand-held mixer, but I have serious doubts about it working.)
2. I think they ship OK. The fruit is fresh, but it's mixed in with a ton of sugar, which is an excellent preservative.

The base recipe is here. A spirited discussion of marshmallow variants is here. A special thank you to Nightscotsman (aka Neil Robertson) for sharing this recipe with us all.

3 comments:

neurondoc said...

Much as I love the idea of making marshmallows, I just cannot justify buying a stand mixer just for that. :-)

Mummy Grabill said...

I love your creativity! Inspiring!

Karen said...

Now Anne, my question about how well they ship was really a hint, but I'm sure you got that right? ;-)