Homemade Marshmallows

In the past I’ve made caramel pop corn as Christmas gifts. This year I wanted to try candy making so I searched for a simple marshmallow recipe on the web. There seems to be two types of marshmallow recipes: one that uses egg whites and one that doesn’t. The one that uses egg whites seems a bit more complicated (and more work) so I’ve settled on trying the Marshmallow recipe from Michael at Cooking for Engineers. I love how he provides photos with step by steps instructions.Friends and family that have tried the marshmallows really liked them as they are lighter, fluffier and not as sweet as the ones from the grocery stores.  I’ve made some slight adjustments to his recipe and tried it with strawberry extract to make strawberry flavored marshmallows. I haven’t tried it with other extract that have colours but the strawberry extract were bright red and it turned the marshmallows pink! Considering that they take almost no time to make, I might whip up a batch of strawberry marshmallows for Valentine’s day.

Homemade Marshmallows (adapted from Cooking for Engineers)

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp Gelatin (unsweetened, unflavored)
• 1/2 cup Water
• 2 cups Sugar
• 2/3 cup Corn Syrup
• 1/4 cup Water
• 1/4 tsp Salt
• 1 tbsp Vanilla Extract
• Powdered Sugar & Potato Starch for dusting

Tools/Equipment:

• 9 x 13″ pan (or any other container, I used a smaller glass baking dish and an 8 x 8″ pan)
• Electric Mixer (I use a stand mixer with the balloon whisk)
• Sauce Pan
• Candy Thermometer

How-To:

1. Mix about 1/4 cup of potato starch with 1/4 cup of powdered sugar together. Use this mixture to dust your pan(s) thoroughly by sifting it over the bottom and sides of the pan(s). Make sure your pan is covered or it’d be hard to remove the marshmallows.
2. In a mixing bowl, dissolve the gelatin in 1/2 cup of water. Let the gelatin bloom for 10 minutes.
3. In the mean time, combine the sugar, corn syrup, salt and 1/4 cup of water in a sauce pan over low heat. Stir with a wooden spoon until sugar is dissolved. Increase heat to moderate and boil the mixture, without stirring, until the candy thermometer reaches 240F (~12-15 minutes). Remove pan from heat and pour mixture in a small, steady stream into the gelatin mixture while mixing on low speed.
4. Once all the sugar has been added, beat the mixture on high speed until white, thick and almost tripled in volume. Add the vanilla extract and mix it for another minute or two.
5. Pour the marshmallow into the prepared pan(s). You can flattened the top with a spatula if you like.
6. Let sit in room temperature for at least 3 hours or longer. When ready, remove the marshmallow by running a knife along the sides of the pan and invert the pan onto a large cutting board dusted with the potato starch and powdered sugar mixture. Lift up one corner of the inverted pan and with fingers, loosen marshmallow and ease it onto the cutting board.
7. Trim the edges and cut the marshmallow into any shape and size you like. To make it easier to cut, I dust my knife with the starch and sugar mixture too. Toss the cut up marshmallow in the potato starch and powdered sugar mixture, making sure all sides are covered.  Shake off the excess and store the marshmallow in an air tight container.

Cooking Tips:

• Many recipes called for oiling the pan before dusting it with powdered sugar. I prefer to not oil my pan because I was afraid it’d leave the oil taste on the marshmallow (even though you trim the edges, there would still be oil on the bottom of the marshmallow). To make sure I can remove the marshmallow easily, I dust the pan completely with the potato starch and powdered sugar until I can barely see the bottom of the pan.
• You can use powdered sugar instead of the mixture of potato starch and powdered sugar for dusting. I didn’t want the marshmallow to be too sweet so I added potato starch to lower the amount of powdered sugar used for dusting.
• Instead of cutting the marshmallow with a knife, you can also use cookie cutters to make different shapes of marshmallows. Just remember to dust the cookie cutter first before cutting.
• I substitute the vanilla extract with strawberry extract (same amount) and it turned out pretty good. I would’ve added more strawberry extract so the flavour will be stronger but on my first try, the red strawberry extract turned the whole marshmallow batch from white to deep pink and it scared me! Next time I will experiment with a bit more so the flavour will be stronger.
• You can store the marshmallow in airtight containers for 1-2 weeks before it starts to dry out. Mine stayed fluffly and soft for 2.5 weeks before the edges and outside started to dry (similar to store brought marshmallows).