Homemade Marshmallows

It's the middle of winter and my hands always seem to be freezing...whether I'm inside or out.  It is so comforting to warm up with a cup of a hot cocoa, tea or coffee. If the choice is hot cocoa, it just simply must be loaded with marshmallows. Kraft marshmallows are good, but homemade marshmallows are amazing! A few years ago, I attempted to make marshmallows for the first time and packaged them as gifts paired with homemade cocoa mix as Christmas gifts.  I made marshmallows again this past weekend with my little nephew who was giddy to lick the whisk and so excited to enjoy them melted in his hot cocoa after school the other day.

It starts with proofing plain gelatin in water until it solidifies.

In the mean time, you dissolve sugar, water and corn syrup together.

And, then bring it to a rolling boil and get to 240 degrees.  We used a probe thermometer inserted through a whisk that works really well.

The sugar mixture goes into the gelatin and is whisked until you have this lovely white marshmallow goo. This is when my nephew could tell it looked like marshmallow and got really excited.

This mixture was poured out onto a highly greased cookie sheet to solidify for a good two hours.

It came away from the pan perfectly and just need A LOT of powdered sugar to keep it from sticking to the counter.

We tried to find some small cookie cutters to do some shapes and after a few sticky attempts, I cut out strips of marshmallow and cut them into dozens of little marshmallow squares.

We had good portion of the counter top completely covered with this mountain of marshmallow!

Now we have a large Ziploc bag full of these yummy little marshmallows.  I don't know that we'll drink enough hot cocoa to use them up this winter, so we may try to make some Rice Krispie treats with homemade marshmallows. Or, some yummy Smore's treats using them.

Recipe for Homemade Marshmallows

Adapted from Food Network

Ingredients:

3 envelopes unflavored gelatin

1 cup water (divided)

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 cup light corn syrup

1/2 t. salt

1 t. vanilla extract

Powdered sugar

Directions:

Butter a cookie sheet or square baking pan.  A smaller baking pan will make thicker marshmallows.

Put gelatin into the bowl of a stand mixer along with 1/2 cup of water and let it proof and solidify (approximately 15 minutes). 

In a small saucepan, combine the other 1/2 cup of water, granulated sugar, corn syrup and salt.  Cook, covered, over medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes or until the sugar is dissolved.   Uncover and clip a candy thermometer (or use a probe thermometer as shown above) and continue to cook the mixture until it reaches 240 degrees, approximately 10 minutes.  Once it reaches 240 degrees, remove from the heat immediately.

Turn the mixer on low speed and, while running, slowly pour the sugar syrup down the side of the bowl into the gelatin mixture. Once you have added all the syrup, increase the speed to high.  Continue to whip until the mixture becomes very thick and is lukewarm, approximately 12-15 minutes. Add the vanilla during the last minute of whipping.

Pour the mixture into the buttered pan and allow to sit for at least 2 hours.  Turn the marshmallow out onto a surface coated with powdered sugar. Cut strips or cut out shapes and continue using powdered sugar to coat all cut sides so they do not stick.

Store with powdered sugar in an airtight container or Ziploc bag.

Halloween Cupcakes

There were a few pre-Halloween occasions that called for a treat so I made a few different Halloween inspired cupcakes, but my favorites were these friendly ghosts.

For my daughter's Montessori Fall Festival cakewalk I did a simple vanilla cupcake with vanilla buttercream and a sprinkling of candy corns.  I even bought some special window top cupcake boxes this year so people at the cakewalk could easily view the treats inside. 

My friend hosted her annual Halloween party in her amazing barn and asked me to bring some cupcakes.  I made several fondant ghosts to top the remaining vanilla cupcakes.  It was too much work to make 20+ ghosts, so I colored the rest of the buttercream orange and decorated them with brown sprinkles and candy corn.

To make the fondant ghosts, I started out by cutting giant marshmallows in a cone shape and made sure it was a little rounded on top.  By cutting the marshmallow, I was able to get it the shape I wanted and it also made the marshmallow nice and sticky for the fondant to adhere.  I referenced my marzipan book and it had a guide for ghosts using a cone shaped and round piece of marzipan under the circle, but you needed to hold them together with a toothpick and I didn't want to have a sharp toothpick in the cupcakes that little kids would be eating.  So, I tried out the marshmallow idea. What kid doesn't like marshmallows!?

Next I rolled out my white chocolate fondant and cut out large circles that were draped on top of the marshmallow and then crimped a little at the bottom.

When I was in England recently, I bought a package of caramel and chocolate decorating tubes and used the milk chocolate one to make the eyes and mouth.  This was much better to use than the gel decorating tubes as they are quite gooey.  The chocolate was easy to put on and hardened nicely.  Plus, the chocolate color matched the dark brown cupcake papers I baked them in.

Our neighborhood has our Halloween party this coming weekend and my family is visiting, so I'm sure I'll be inspired to create some other fun fall goodies.

Hot Chocolate at Beernsten's

On a recent visit to see our family in Wisconsin, my sister-in-law, mother-in-law and I had a nice afternoon break to catch up at Beernsten's Confectionery. They have told me about it several times and it was great to have some time to check it out. It's a charming little chocolate shop with an old fashioned feel from the original wood display cases and booths. It feels like a cross between a 1930's candy shop and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It's so fun visiting a chocolate shop this time of year with all the beautiful Valentine treats and pretty decorated heart candy boxes. It inspired me to want to make chocolates again and I may try to make some truffles for Valentine's Day this year. They have sit-down service so instead of just getting some chocolates and heading home, we picked out a few treats and sat down to catch up in person instead of via Facebook, video calls or e-mail, like usual. We each had a chocolate and a homemade caramel with the highlight being our hot chocolate. It was steaming hot with an unusual topping...instead of whipped cream or marshmallows it was topped with marshmallow cream. What a treat on a cold and windy winter day!

My Favourite Thanksgiving Sides

It was a quiet and peaceful Thanksgiving dinner this year. We stayed home (which we realized hadn't done in about five years) and made a simple meal for just us and my mum. The turkey turned out perfectly, but the stuffing wasn't the greatest this year (which Sean admitted to me). I need to stick to the recipe I've used in the past! However, my favourite side dishes this year were the ever so sweet potato casserole topped with golden marshmallows (which Audrey loved!) and the sauteed brussel sprouts with pancetta.