I made marshmallows! Big, fluffy, vanilla marshmallows.
I had several egg whites left over after making mango ice cream last week, so rather than dumping $0.75 down the drain, I decided that I’d make marshmallows. After spending well over a year thinking about doing it, it took me about two minutes to find a recipe and start gathering ingredients. It’s funny how that works.
As with any new experience largely centered around beating egg whites and making a hot sugar syrup, there were a few tense moments (Am I doing this right? The recipe said not to let the mixer splash syrup onto the sides of the bowl, but the bowl is now covered with beads of hardened syrup! I’m supposed to coat the pan with powdered sugar and cornstarch, but I don’t have cornstarch!), but in less than an hour I had a giant marshmallow cloud resting on a sheet pan.
I left the pan on the counter overnight, and in the morning I dusted the cloud with a generous layer of powdered sugar and used kitchen shears to cut it into squares. I did have a problem with the bottoms being a little damp (according to the troubleshooting tips from the recipe it’s because I didn’t beat the final mixture long enough to cool it down), but I turned them over to let them dry out, and a few hours later I had a few dozen marshmallows ready for consumption. Very exciting.
A few days later, inspired by chocolate-dipped Peeps, I melted some bittersweet chocolate chips and made a good thing even better. I will also note that just like Peeps, homemade marshmallows are delicious when slightly stale.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with chocolate-dipped marshmallows, but I couldn’t resist adding sprinkles to a few of them.
Why haven’t Peeps thought of sprinkles? Small brains, I would guess.