Homemade Marshmallows: Recipes & Tips (Part 3)

[patris]

I had a little marshmallow side hustle for a few years some time ago, and we did a bunch of fruit flavors. I never did get a robust strawberry flavor, but we did passionfruit, raspberry, cherry, orange and lime with good success. Here's the basic recipe I came up with, which fills a (well-greased, nonstick) 9X13 pan about an inch to an inch and a quarter high, or a half-sheet pan about three-quarters of an inch:

 

Bloom:

.75 oz gelatin

in

4 oz fruit puree (we did passionfruit, raspberry, cherry) or fruit juice (we did orange and I have done lime and pomegranate since then)

 

Cook to 240 F:

16 oz sugar

7 oz light corn syrup

4 oz puree or juice

1/4 to 1/2 tsp citric acid

 

Beat into bloomed fruit/gelatin

 

Beat on high until max volume achieved - 7 minutes? I always looked for lots of strings of marshmallow to form between beater and bowl.

 

The flavor probably did fade a little over time, but it was so intense that I don't think they suffered much overall.

 

One note on the orange - getting the right juice was tricky. At first it always came out more like very soft taffy than marshmallow, but we tried a bunch of different brands and eventually ended up finding that we needed a not-from-concentrate, no-pulp juice (it was a long time ago but I think we used Florida's Best or Tropicana). My suspicion was that there was a lot of oil from the orange peels in the other brands and it interfered with aeration, but who knows.

 

[Pastrypastmidnight]

8 hours ago, patris said:

I had a little marshmallow side hustle for a few years some time ago, and we did a bunch of fruit flavors. I never did get a robust strawberry flavor, but we did passionfruit, raspberry, cherry, orange and lime with good success. Here's the basic recipe I came up with, which fills a (well-greased, nonstick) 9X13 pan about an inch to an inch and a quarter high, or a half-sheet pan about three-quarters of an inch:

 

Bloom:

.75 oz gelatin

in

4 oz fruit puree (we did passionfruit, raspberry, cherry) or fruit juice (we did orange and I have done lime and pomegranate since then)

 

Cook to 240 F:

16 oz sugar

7 oz light corn syrup

4 oz puree or juice

1/4 to 1/2 tsp citric acid

 

Beat into bloomed fruit/gelatin

 

Beat on high until max volume achieved - 7 minutes? I always looked for lots of strings of marshmallow to form between beater and bowl.

 

The flavor probably did fade a little over time, but it was so intense that I don't think they suffered much overall.

 

One note on the orange - getting the right juice was tricky. At first it always came out more like very soft taffy than marshmallow, but we tried a bunch of different brands and eventually ended up finding that we needed a not-from-concentrate, no-pulp juice (it was a long time ago but I think we used Florida's Best or Tropicana). My suspicion was that there was a lot of oil from the orange peels in the other brands and it interfered with aeration, but who knows.

 

Thank you so much for sharing! So you added citric acid to all of your fruit flavors? I have only used it in blood orange, lemon and grapefruit (all wonderful, btw)—only citrus varieties. I’ll give it a try!

[patris]

9 hours ago, Pastrypastmidnight said:

Thank you so much for sharing! So you added citric acid to all of your fruit flavors? I have only used it in blood orange, lemon and grapefruit (all wonderful, btw)—only citrus varieties. I’ll give it a try!

 

You’re most welcome! I do add citric acid to all the fruit flavors - a bit less for sweeter fruits like cherry and strawberry. I have a real tart tooth, so I like a bit of an edge.

[Pastrypastmidnight]

I made a layered lime and blackberry marshmallow using nightscotsman’s strawberry recipe. I replaced all of the water in both the bloom and the syrup with lime juice or blackberry pulp. I think, for me, they need a little more gelatin. They were super soft and creamy, but a tiny bit too delicate. I also had to coat them twice because they were just a tad too sticky. I used 14g of gelatin exactly, and I think maybe somewhere between that and 21 would be perfect. The blackberry flavor has held up much better for me than the blueberry I made previously, but still doesn’t have the staying power of the lime. The blackberry, however, was a little sturdier than the lime (possibly because it was pulp with fiber rather than just lime juice?)  

 

ETA: I added citric acid to both flavors and I definitely think I will do that will all of my fruit marshmallows—thanks @patris!

Edited March 19, 2018 by Pastrypastmidnight (log)

[Bentley]

Does anyone have any information on shelf life of molded bonbons that include a marshmallow layer?

[Jim D.]

25 minutes ago, Bentley said:

Does anyone have any information on shelf life of molded bonbons that include a marshmallow layer?

 

I tested a marshmallow layer made with the eGullet strawberry marshmallow recipe, and it had an Aw reading of 0.67--well below the cutoff point I use of 0.85. It will, of course, depend somewhat on the quantity of water left in the syrup.

[Kerry Beal]

1 hour ago, Jim D. said:

 

I tested a marshmallow layer made with the eGullet strawberry marshmallow recipe, and it had an Aw reading of 0.67--well below the cutoff point I use of 0.85. It will, of course, depend somewhat on the quantity of water left in the syrup.

As Jim says - low Aw - only issue will be water shifting between the layers. 

[Jim D.]

2 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:

As Jim says - low Aw - only issue will be water shifting between the layers. 

Yes, after reading an article by Peter Greweling on water and fat migration between layers, I have started painting on a layer of cocoa butter between layers, e.g., between marshmallow and a pâte de fruit layer. Interestingly Greweling, who likes using layers in bonbons, does not specify the cocoa butter layer in his books, but certainly does so in that article.

[Beets3]

On 3/16/2018 at 10:05 AM, patris said:

I had a little marshmallow side hustle for a few years some time ago, and we did a bunch of fruit flavors. I never did get a robust strawberry flavor, but we did passionfruit, raspberry, cherry, orange and lime with good success. Here's the basic recipe I came up with, which fills a (well-greased, nonstick) 9X13 pan about an inch to an inch and a quarter high, or a half-sheet pan about three-quarters of an inch:

 

Bloom:

.75 oz gelatin

in

4 oz fruit puree (we did passionfruit, raspberry, cherry) or fruit juice (we did orange and I have done lime and pomegranate since then)

 

Cook to 240 F:

16 oz sugar

7 oz light corn syrup

4 oz puree or juice

1/4 to 1/2 tsp citric acid

 

Beat into bloomed fruit/gelatin

 

Beat on high until max volume achieved - 7 minutes? I always looked for lots of strings of marshmallow to form between beater and bowl.

 

The flavor probably did fade a little over time, but it was so intense that I don't think they suffered much overall.

 

One note on the orange - getting the right juice was tricky. At first it always came out more like very soft taffy than marshmallow, but we tried a bunch of different brands and eventually ended up finding that we needed a not-from-concentrate, no-pulp juice (it was a long time ago but I think we used Florida's Best or Tropicana). My suspicion was that there was a lot of oil from the orange peels in the other brands and it interfered with aeration, but who knows.

 

What was the shelf life on these, and how/where did you store them? Thanks

[patris]

On 4/8/2021 at 10:26 PM, Beets3 said:

What was the shelf life on these, and how/where did you store them? Thanks

They kept for probably a couple weeks before they started to go grainy. We had them enrobed in chocolate, which no doubt helped them keep their texture. We only made what we would sell (took orders ahead of time), so storage wasn’t a concern. They were packaged by the half pound in heat-sealed cello bags.

[dhardy123]

On 3/16/2018 at 1:05 PM, patris said:

I had a little marshmallow side hustle for a few years some time ago, and we did a bunch of fruit flavors. I never did get a robust strawberry flavor, but we did passionfruit, raspberry, cherry, orange and lime with good success. Here's the basic recipe I came up with, which fills a (well-greased, nonstick) 9X13 pan about an inch to an inch and a quarter high, or a half-sheet pan about three-quarters of an inch:

 

Bloom:

.75 oz gelatin

in

4 oz fruit puree (we did passionfruit, raspberry, cherry) or fruit juice (we did orange and I have done lime and pomegranate since then)

 

Cook to 240 F:

16 oz sugar

7 oz light corn syrup

4 oz puree or juice

1/4 to 1/2 tsp citric acid

 

Beat into bloomed fruit/gelatin

 

Beat on high until max volume achieved - 7 minutes? I always looked for lots of strings of marshmallow to form between beater and bowl.

 

The flavor probably did fade a little over time, but it was so intense that I don't think they suffered much overall.

 

One note on the orange - getting the right juice was tricky. At first it always came out more like very soft taffy than marshmallow, but we tried a bunch of different brands and eventually ended up finding that we needed a not-from-concentrate, no-pulp juice (it was a long time ago but I think we used Florida's Best or Tropicana). My suspicion was that there was a lot of oil from the orange peels in the other brands and it interfered with aeration, but who knows.

 

Did you just juice the limes and use that juice?

[MaryIsobel]

On 3/16/2018 at 10:05 AM, patris said:

I had a little marshmallow side hustle for a few years some time ago, and we did a bunch of fruit flavors. I never did get a robust strawberry flavor, but we did passionfruit, raspberry, cherry, orange and lime with good success. Here's the basic recipe I came up with, which fills a (well-greased, nonstick) 9X13 pan about an inch to an inch and a quarter high, or a half-sheet pan about three-quarters of an inch:

 

Bloom:

.75 oz gelatin

in

4 oz fruit puree (we did passionfruit, raspberry, cherry) or fruit juice (we did orange and I have done lime and pomegranate since then)

 

Cook to 240 F:

16 oz sugar

7 oz light corn syrup

4 oz puree or juice

1/4 to 1/2 tsp citric acid

 

Beat into bloomed fruit/gelatin

 

Beat on high until max volume achieved - 7 minutes? I always looked for lots of strings of marshmallow to form between beater and bowl.

 

The flavor probably did fade a little over time, but it was so intense that I don't think they suffered much overall.

 

One note on the orange - getting the right juice was tricky. At first it always came out more like very soft taffy than marshmallow, but we tried a bunch of different brands and eventually ended up finding that we needed a not-from-concentrate, no-pulp juice (it was a long time ago but I think we used Florida's Best or Tropicana). My suspicion was that there was a lot of oil from the orange peels in the other brands and it interfered with aeration, but who knows.

 

Passionfruit marshmallows would send my daughter over the moon. I make marshmallows for Christmas, the family favourite is vanilla, covered in toasted coconut. I have access to passion fruit puree in the freezer section of the grocery. Is that similar to what you used? Fresh passionfruit are few and far between here and those that do show up are dreadfully past their prime.

 

[Jim D.]

4 hours ago, MaryIsobel said:

Passionfruit marshmallows would send my daughter over the moon. I make marshmallows for Christmas, the family favourite is vanilla, covered in toasted coconut. I have access to passion fruit puree in the freezer section of the grocery. Is that similar to what you used? Fresh passionfruit are few and far between here and those that do show up are dreadfully past their prime.

 

 

I used passion fruit purée for mine (both to soften the gelatin and to make the syrup), and the marshmallows were delicious.  Even when part of a two-layer bonbon, the passion fruit flavor came through beautifully and people really noticed it.

[patris]

On 10/26/2021 at 2:45 AM, dhardy123 said:

Did you just juice the limes and use that juice?

 

I did juice them (key limes), cursing the tiny little things all the while.

[patris]

20 hours ago, MaryIsobel said:

Passionfruit marshmallows would send my daughter over the moon. I make marshmallows for Christmas, the family favourite is vanilla, covered in toasted coconut. I have access to passion fruit puree in the freezer section of the grocery. Is that similar to what you used? Fresh passionfruit are few and far between here and those that do show up are dreadfully past their prime.

 

 

Yes, I did use frozen puree - Wegmans carries Goya brand and it works beautifully.

[Kerry Beal]

3 hours ago, patris said:

 

I did juice them (key limes), cursing the tiny little things all the while.

I juiced Key Limes with an extracting juicer once - rather nasty juice with all that oil. 

[Chocolot]

On 10/27/2021 at 2:54 PM, Kerry Beal said:

I juiced Key Limes with an extracting juicer once - rather nasty juice with all that oil. 

Try zesting those little suckers!

[AAQuesada]

3 hours ago, Chocolot said:

Try zesting those little suckers!

Try rubbing sugar cubes on them to absorb the oils lol! Fun 

[lady_c_makes]

Hi all,

 

I have been reading the previous threads on marshmallow making, trying to improve my own. I've tried several different recipes and each seem to come with their own problems for me. I have found that one recipe the sugar seems to re-crystallise after a couple of weeks. I'm hoping my recent batch don't do this as I like to eat them as they are! 

 

I also wanted to thank @andiesenji for giving his tip of cutting mallows with a monofilament line. We couldn't find any fishing line so my husband bought me a pack of guitar strings. Cutting with one of those went very smoothly although I found with the whole slab that the line didn't make it all the way through the marshmallow so need to figure that bit out. It was perfect for individuals though and gave such smooth cuts.