Homemade Marshmallows: Recipes & Tips (Part 2)

[Madhat]

Hello all,

I've been making marshmallows for the past few years. I've just recently found this board and this thread has been helpful and informative. I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to the topic, it has been most educational.

Over this holiday season I whipped up a few batches of marshmallows for my friends and family.

Peppermint Chocolate Chip- This one is my wife's favorite. Peppermint extract with just a hint of vanilla. Just before I remove the bowl of marshmallow from the mixer I pour in about 10 oz. of mini-chocolate chips that have been chilling in freezer. I then turn the mixer back on low for just a few revolutions to distribute the chips into the marshmallow. The heat of the marshmallow partially melts the chips giving the mixture a wonderful chocolate swirl as well.

Rootbeer Floats- I used a locally made rootbeer to bloom the gelatin and rootbeer extract I picked up at a home-brewery supply store. I'm going to claim that the carbonation of the rootbeer made these marshmallows extra fluffy until a food scientist posts calling my B.S.

Apple Pie- I used cinnamon applesauce and Tuaca Liqueur to bloom the gelatin. I had tried a drink in the past made with hot apple cider and Tuaca liqueur with a dash of whipped cream that tasted quite similar to apple pie. I think the combination worked nicely in the marshmallow as well.

S'mores- I made two different styles. One, pictured below, is half dipped in tempered milk chocolate and then immediately placed on a homemade graham cracker and allowed to cool. Just before eating I toast the top of the marshmallow with a torch.

The other S'mores are similar except then marshmallow is completely enrobed in chocolate. I've tried a number of different s'mores and I've found that, as far as storage goes, anytime marshmallow is in contact with the cracker or even just stored un-enrobed with the crackers it results in the cracker quickly becoming...mushy. Refrigeration in airtight containers helps but then you have to deal with cold marshmallows. Of course none of this is a problem if you eat them right away as tends to happen.

[Lior]

Your s'mores look great!! The thing is I need to sell mine so it has to be packageable and etc. For home yours are definastely the correct combo!!

Thanks for sharing.

[bkeith]

I see thanks. What do you use to cut them with?

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Oiled pizza cutter, with a ruler to guide. A guitar would be terrific, but I don't have the space to store something I'd use so seldom.

[Desiderio]

Second batch , to perfect the caramel rolling techinique, still need some work to find the fastes way to do this

Edited January 6, 2008 by Desiderio (log)

[Chris Hennes]

Second batch , to perfect the caramel rolling techinique, still need some work to find the fastes way to do this 

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Wow, those look fantastic! I always have trouble getting such nice square edges on things... I don't know about the "fastest way" but it sure looks like you've got the "right way" .

[LizD518]

WOW!!

Desiderio: those look like something out of my dreams

Lior: I love your s'mores!

Tri2Cook: Your flavors sound amazing - do you sell commercially?

I first looked at this thread over a year ago and made my first batch of marshmallows then. I've only made one other since and I think I really need to get working on more! I fact, I think I have strawberries and gelatin in the house right now...

[Desiderio]

Thank you guys, I couldnt have done it without this thread and Egulleters help

[Tri2Cook]

Tri2Cook:  Your flavors sound amazing - do you sell commercially?

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Thanks!

Nope, I don't venture into that market. One thing I've learned about marshmallows is that I enjoy making them but I do not enjoy cutting/packaging them in large quantity. I'll stick to things that go on plates.

[Desiderio]

I don't have pictures yet and they're still uncut but I finally finished my little marshmallow marathon. I have the following flavors made, dusted, wrapped, sealed in containers and ready to cut, package and give away:

- Chocolate (callebaut cocoa)

- Strawberry (strawberry puree and lemon juice)

- Raspberry (raspberry puree and citric acid)

- Passion Fruit (passion fruit puree)

- Blueberry (pureed local wild blueberries that were in my freezer, lemon juice, replaced corn syrup with homemade wild blueberry syrup)

- Cherry (morello cherry puree, citric acid)

- Honey Lemon (fresh lemon juice, citric acid, replaced corn syrup with honey)

- Apple (pureed granny smith apples, malic acid)

- Caramel (caramelized part of the sugar and added a healthy dose of sea salt)

- Coconut (coconut milk boosted with spray dried coconut milk powder)

- Banana (pureed bananas)

- Pumpkin (pumpkin puree, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, vanilla)

- Vanilla (that one explains itself)

- Chai (strong chai tea)

- London Fog (strong earl grey and vanilla)

- Coffee (espresso)

- Rosewater (another self explanatory flavor)

- Mayan Chocolate (cocoa, cinnamon, new mexico chile powder, vanilla, replaced 1/2 of corn syrup with honey)

Things I learned:

- Nightscotsman's recipe rocks but through testing I discovered I prefer to use all fruit puree instead of the 1/2 puree, 1/2 water as listed. It doesn't seem to hurt anything and gives a more powerful flavor.

- I made numerous substitutions to the cooked syrup depending on the flavor I was doing and it caused no problems at all.

- The recipe is very open to changes, the only thing that seemed to mess with it was the addition of fat (coconut milk and cocoa for example) which resulted in less volume and a more dense texture but otherwise was fine.

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That's an impressive amount of flavors

I was thinking about te caramel flavor lately , actually more burnt sugar one.Do you think would work if I make some burnt sugar then I add some water to make liquid burnt sugar and use it to bloom the gelatine?

I might have to try.

Also would sub the corn syrup with molasses or maple syrup ,work?For Maple I would use maple syrup and natural maple flavor , but I am always worry to subs the corn syrup with other syrups.

[KrazedMom]

Thank you guys, I couldnt have done it without this thread and Egulleters help 

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they just look so darned PERFECT! Same size, perfectly square, even layer of caramel

How DO you get the caramel on there? Is it a cooled layer that you roll around the marshmallow and let the marshmallow stick to it or do you actually roll it in gooey caramel?

HMMMM, green apple flavored marshmallows rolled in caramel or that red stuff with nuts!!

[Desiderio]

Thank you )

I did some caramel ( salted ) and I pour it into a cookie sheet to cool down little bit.

The I cut pieces nd put them onto a parchment paper and roll it with a rolling pin, when it gets little too cool I zip it into the microwave for couple of seconds.

Then when its the right thickness I place a piece of marshmallow I cut the rectangle of caramel and roll the caramel around with the help of the parchament paper , while the caramel sheet is still warm, it sticks better , then trim the extra and cut the log into pieces, the marshmallow change shape little bit but springs back to the square shape right away.I should have take pics of the process , I will next time.

[Tri2Cook]

I was thinking about te caramel flavor lately , actually more burnt sugar one.Do you think would work if I make some burnt sugar then I add some water to make liquid burnt sugar and use it to bloom the gelatine?

I might have to try.

Also would sub the corn syrup with molasses or maple syrup ,work?For Maple I would use maple syrup and natural maple flavor , but I am always worry to subs the corn syrup with other syrups.

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I think that would work great. Probably better than the way I did it. I'm not completely happy with my caramel batch, I shouldn't have deducted the caramelized sugar from the total for the syrup and I was a little too heavy with the salt.

As for subbing the syrup, I wouldn't be too worried (with the disclaimer that I'm no expert, just basing this on my experimenting). I subbed a blueberry syrup I made with wild blueberries, sugar and citric acid for all but 2 tbsp. of the corn syrup in the blueberry batch, I subbed honey for half the corn syrup in the mayan chocolate batch and I subbed honey for all of the corn syrup in the honey lemon batch. They all worked just fine.

I didn't think of doing maple, which disappoints me a bit because it's one of my favorite flavors in the sweet world, and molasses would be cool too. I started out with the plan to avoid using extracts and oils but wound up using vanilla and rosewater. I did manage to stick with my plan to not add anything for color other than what I flavored them with so it's not a visually exciting array.

[Lior]

Wow those caramel marshmellows really look great-perfect!! I had some kids taste the strawberry marshmellows-I cut them 3.5 cmX3.5cm -so they are not too big and the 10year old girls loved the cloudy feel and texture but claimed they are too sweet. Perhaps the sweet tooth is less here?? Is there a suggestion on how to somehow cut sweetness? I was quite disappointed. I think with the graham crackers and chocolate they are less sweet.

[Desiderio]

I was thinking about te caramel flavor lately , actually more burnt sugar one.Do you think would work if I make some burnt sugar then I add some water to make liquid burnt sugar and use it to bloom the gelatine?

I might have to try.

Also would sub the corn syrup with molasses or maple syrup ,work?For Maple I would use maple syrup and natural maple flavor , but I am always worry to subs the corn syrup with other syrups.

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I think that would work great. Probably better than the way I did it. I'm not completely happy with my caramel batch, I shouldn't have deducted the caramelized sugar from the total for the syrup and I was a little too heavy with the salt.

As for subbing the syrup, I wouldn't be too worried (with the disclaimer that I'm no expert, just basing this on my experimenting). I subbed a blueberry syrup I made with wild blueberries, sugar and citric acid for all but 2 tbsp. of the corn syrup in the blueberry batch, I subbed honey for half the corn syrup in the mayan chocolate batch and I subbed honey for all of the corn syrup in the honey lemon batch. They all worked just fine.

I didn't think of doing maple, which disappoints me a bit because it's one of my favorite flavors in the sweet world, and molasses would be cool too. I started out with the plan to avoid using extracts and oils but wound up using vanilla and rosewater. I did manage to stick with my plan to not add anything for color other than what I flavored them with so it's not a visually exciting array.

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Thank you, I will try then the way you did it , with the maple and the molasses.I love making marshmallows , they are so fun to play with

[Kerry Beal]

Wow those caramel marshmellows really look great-perfect!! I had some kids taste the strawberry marshmellows-I cut them 3.5 cmX3.5cm -so they are not too big and the 10year old girls loved the cloudy feel and texture but claimed they are too sweet. Perhaps the sweet tooth is less here?? Is there a suggestion on how to somehow cut sweetness? I was quite disappointed. I think with the graham crackers and chocolate they are less sweet.

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With the fruit marshmallows, try adding a bit of citric acid - probably available as 'sour salt' in your neck of the woods.

[Chris Hennes]

Thank you )

I did some caramel ( salted ) and I pour it into a cookie sheet to cool down little bit.

The I cut pieces nd put them onto a parchment paper and roll it with a rolling pin, when it gets little too cool I zip it into the microwave for couple of seconds.

Then when its the right thickness I place a piece of marshmallow I cut the rectangle of caramel and roll the caramel around with the help of the parchament paper , while the caramel sheet is still warm, it sticks better , then trim the extra and cut the log into pieces, the marshmallow change shape little bit but springs back to the square shape right away.I should have take pics of the process , I will next time.

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Wow, that sounds like a lot of work! How much time did it take you to do a batch?

[Lior]

Wow those caramel marshmellows really look great-perfect!! I had some kids taste the strawberry marshmellows-I cut them 3.5 cmX3.5cm -so they are not too big and the 10year old girls loved the cloudy feel and texture but claimed they are too sweet. Perhaps the sweet tooth is less here?? Is there a suggestion on how to somehow cut sweetness? I was quite disappointed. I think with the graham crackers and chocolate they are less sweet.

←

With the fruit marshmallows, try adding a bit of citric acid - probably available as 'sour salt' in your neck of the woods.

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Would that be "lemon salt" by any chance? And how much do you think for a full batch of marshmellows? Boy! I use the lemon salt to take the stone off my electrical kettle. Now, I know you don't call it "stone" but I can't remember the word! Maybe limestone?!

I will try it next batch!

[Tri2Cook]

I agree with Kerry. I kept a small bowl of citric acid dissolved in a little water handy and just added it to taste early in the beating process. I used malic acid for the apple batch as well. It makes a definite difference, the fruit flavors maintain there brightness (and in some cases, tartness). Not that they're bad without it, but it is a nice addition.

[patris]

With the fruit marshmallows, try adding a bit of citric acid - probably available as 'sour salt' in your neck of the woods.

I definitely third that - I use anywhere between a half teaspoon and a teaspoon per batch, added to the fruit puree that I mix with the sugar and corn syrup. It really perks up the flavor, especially with raspberry and cherry.

I haven't yet made a strawberry flavor that I'm entirely happy with - I think strawberries just have a much milder flavor than raspberries or cherries. Good luck!

[bkeith]

I was thinking about te caramel flavor lately , actually more burnt sugar one.Do you think would work if I make some burnt sugar then I add some water to make liquid burnt sugar and use it to bloom the gelatine?

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That's in essence what I did, but instead of using the "burnt sugar water" to bloom the gelatine, I left it in the pot and used it as the base for the sugar syrup. I didn't measure, but I probably used about 1/3 cup of sugar to make the burnt sugar. Next time I'd use 1/2 cup or more and take it to a slightly darker brown before stopping the cooking.

[Madhat]

Lior,

There is recipe variations that use cream of tartar or citric acid to assist with the inversion of the sugar. It will allow you to decrease the amount of corn syrup and it gives the marshmallow a more acidic taste. Taste, I think, is more like store bought and kids seem to develop a bizarre affection for prepackaged foodstuffs.

Practical Answers page on marshmallows

The pdf you can download from this site has a few variations.

[Kerry Beal]

Wow those caramel marshmellows really look great-perfect!! I had some kids taste the strawberry marshmellows-I cut them 3.5 cmX3.5cm -so they are not too big and the 10year old girls loved the cloudy feel and texture but claimed they are too sweet. Perhaps the sweet tooth is less here?? Is there a suggestion on how to somehow cut sweetness? I was quite disappointed. I think with the graham crackers and chocolate they are less sweet.

←

With the fruit marshmallows, try adding a bit of citric acid - probably available as 'sour salt' in your neck of the woods.

←

Would that be "lemon salt" by any chance? And how much do you think for a full batch of marshmellows? Boy! I use the lemon salt to take the stone off my electrical kettle. Now, I know you don't call it "stone" but I can't remember the word! Maybe limestone?!

I will try it next batch!

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Very likely lemon salt is the same thing as citric acid.

I think like everyone, it's probably to taste, as Patris says somewhere between 1/2 to 1 tsp per batch.

[Desiderio]

Thank you )

I did some caramel ( salted ) and I pour it into a cookie sheet to cool down little bit.

The I cut pieces nd put them onto a parchment paper and roll it with a rolling pin, when it gets little too cool I zip it into the microwave for couple of seconds.

Then when its the right thickness I place a piece of marshmallow I cut the rectangle of caramel and roll the caramel around with the help of the parchament paper , while the caramel sheet is still warm, it sticks better , then trim the extra and cut the log into pieces, the marshmallow change shape little bit but springs back to the square shape right away.I should have take pics of the process , I will next time.

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Wow, that sounds like a lot of work! How much time did it take you to do a batch?

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Umm I didnt time it,that kinda stuff I do to relax on my days off between other things around the house ,so I go back and forth between experiments and doing a load of lundry , I am crazy like that , but I am extremely fast

Probably too much work for a selling purpose at the moment ,thats why I need to find a more commercial way to do them, I was thinking ,I have a big sheet of plywood in the basement ( where i work with my chocolates) and If I can frame it , I could pour the caramel on it ( after I covered with parchment or something ) , that will require some time to practice on how much caramel will fit into the frame at the exact thickness, then I can score the shee of caramel and start place the marshmallow bars on each portion and roll roll roll,I will try soon I will let you know.

Edited January 8, 2008 by Desiderio (log)

[KrazedMom]

Lior,

There is recipe variations that use cream of tartar or citric acid to assist with the inversion of the sugar. It will allow you to decrease the amount of corn syrup and it gives the marshmallow a more acidic taste. Taste, I think, is more like store bought and kids seem to develop a bizarre affection for prepackaged foodstuffs.

Practical Answers page on marshmallows

The pdf you can download from this site has a few variations.

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I can get to the website, but the pdf link isn't working. Any ideas/suggestions?

[Madhat]

Sorry, that website can be a bit difficult to use. Try this page http://practicalaction.org/practicalanswer...products_id=108

and free registration (sigh) is required to download from that site.

I've uploaded the .pdf to rapidshare.com for those who would prefer fewer hoops to jump through. Download link here: http://rapidshare.com/files/82116056/marshmallows.pdf.html