Never make marshmallows "just because."
I am still wondering just what inspired me to take on this project at 8 PM on a lovely Monday evening, after a lovely dinner, while M. was outside tearing vines off the house in preparation for a new paint job.
Was I bored or just clueless? Maybe a bit of both.
The marshmallow making affair of August 2009 turned into twenty minutes over the hot stove with a candy thermometer waiting for the molten mess of corn syrup and sugar to reach 240 degrees, eight minutes of mixing the molten mess into the gelatin and watching it morph into gooey, shiny, mallow fluff, and a solid thirty minutes of fighting with the fluff. It was endlessly ropey and sticky. A spatula dipped in water did nothing. Neither did a spatula coated in oil. Forget about using spoons, or fingers out of desperation.
I ended up with a spatula in two pieces (no kidding! it came apart in the gooey mess), numerous bowls with sticky mallow or hardened corn syrup to clean, and a mixer coated with marshmallow and an overheated engine.
And then there were the marshmallows: thin and floppy, they do taste like marshmallows and are pretty cute. This morning I cut them and tossed them in powdered sugar and thought "it wasn't that bad, was it?"
But it was, and I will never ever make them again. I will happy pony up 99 cents for a bag of perfectly fluffed Stay-Puff Marshmallows. And I will have serious reverence for those perfect cubes of homemade marshmallows you see at upscale grocers.
The s'mores for this weekend better be worth every graham-chocolate-homemade-marshmallow bite.
1 comment:
ha, so ironic. i was just asking hugh last night if he liked mallows... cause i was thinking how never in my life would i want to try and make them. Anything that requires a candy thermometer is not for me! nice try, you attempt is appreciated!
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