Caramel-coated marshmallow woes

[sugarseattle]

i have always wanted to try those caramel marshmallows from vosgues chocolates, but never had. last week i was making vanilla bean marshmallows, and realized I had some caramel and thought I'd give it a go.

first off i brushed all the corn starch off the top of the marshmallow sheet. Then i melted down some caramel and poured it on top. then i let it sit for a while to harden. I then tried to cut the sheet into little bites, but the caramel at room temp was too chewy, so i decided to freeze it. then i removed the sheet out of the freezer and cut it, then put it back in the freezer. the next day, i pulled it and brought it to room temp, got some chocolate (i used coating chocolate because i'm terrible at tempering), then started dipping the marshmallows. about half way through the sheet, i started noticing caramel oozing out of the chocolate, so i put a little more chocolate on the oozing pustule, but it just kept leaking out, then out of another area, etc. i tried to patch, but now i've got so much chocolate on the outside it doesn't taste very well...

i thought about dipping while the marshmallows were frozen, but i've had troubles with that in the past...the chocolate cracks. so i wanted everything to be at similar temp.

any thoughts? perhaps there's some simple thin way I can encapsulate the caramel? maybe i need to think about one of those chocolate tunnels?

[patris]

Stephanie,

What kind of caramel did you use? Kerry Beal included a caramel in her Confectionery 101 demo that might work well - perhaps if you poured the caramel into a frame or onto a greased, lined sheet pan the same size as the marshmallow, you could layer the two once the caramel is completely cooled. At that point you could try footing the sheet on the caramel side with untempered chocolate, then cut and enrobe.

Another option might be to make the caramel first, let it cool, then make the marshmallow and spread it onto the sheet of caramel - let it set, then cut and dip.

Good luck!

[Desiderio]

I never saw them , so I went to look them up .

I would probably do as already suggested ( I do make caramel marshmallows in different ways ) I would make some caramel ( probably the one Kerry has posted )

pour it inside a container ( cookie sheet etc) let it cool , stay away from the refrigerator or freezer , both caramel and marshmallows are igroscopic, they attract moisture and the refrigerator isnt a good place for neither.

Make the marshmallow pour it on top of the caramel, let set foe 12 hours etc.The trick is that the caramel should be at a similar consistency of the marshmallow when you cut it, so a soft but fimr caramel that isnt chewy.

I just made 2 days ago a vanilla marshmallow slab with inserts of caramel inside,then I cut them all up and covered in chocolate, they are pretty dangerous :-P

[Chris Hennes]

How warm did you have your chocolate? Was it effectively "melting" the caramel, making it more liquid that it would normally be at room temp? I wonder if using 90 degree F tempered chocolate (that would then set up very quickly) would eliminate this problem.