Homemade Marshmallows

Hi Blog Readers!!!

This is a guest post from the "Whenever-I-Feel-Like-It Baker", the sister of the Monday Morning Baker. (You won't find me waking up at 4 am on a Monday morning, that's for sure.) I also am a little less interested in bread and more interested in sweets and desserts like cakes, pies, and cookies. So while I was in town for Christmas, Dennis and I did a LOT of baking for our friends and family for the holiday. We also had a great time sharing recipes and trying out a few new tricks. Some of the highlights included: molasses spice cookies (a sweet and spicy chewy cookie), sugar cookies with royal icing, sea salt caramels, homemade marshmallows, homemade hot chocolate mix, and a pumpkin pie. Today I'm going to share the recipe for the homemade marshmallows because I had a lot of fun trying this out.

Homemade Marshmallows (adapted from smitten kitchen)

We halved the recipe from the website because we thought that 96 marshmallows was probably overkill.

1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 3/4 envelopes (1 Tbsp. + 1 1/4 tsp.) unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup cold water, divided
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/8 tsp. salt
1 large egg white
1/2 Tbsp. vanilla extract

Oil the bottom and sides of an 8 inch square baking pan and dust with powdered sugar, shaking the powdered sugar around the pan to coat evenly. We also lined the bottom of the pan with a square of parchment paper and proceeded to oil and dust that as well.

In the bowl of a standing mixer, sprinkle the gelatin over 1/4 cup cold water and let stand to soften while you boil the sugar syrup. We used the stand mixer for this, but the original recipe states you could also use a handheld mixer. (I haven't tested that, so if you try it, leave a comment to tell everyone how it worked!)

Boil the sugar syrup. In a large heavy sauce pan, cook the sugar, corn syrup, the remaining 1/4 cup of water, and salt over low heat, stirring with a wooden spoon until the sugar is dissolved. Increase the heat to medium or medium high and boil without stirring until the mixture reaches 240 degrees F on a candy thermometer, approximately 10-12 minutes.

Here I will digress slightly to discuss some principles of candy making. These days I know many of us are concerned about health and are generally averse to the dreaded HFCS (or high fructose corn syrup). It is called for in this recipe for a specific reason: Sugar dissolves into water to make the syrup for candy. As the mixture boils, the water evaporates as steam, allowing the temperature of the mixture to rise beyond the boiling point of water. As this process occurs, the sugar crystals also have a tendency to reform and precipitate out of the solution (think rock candy). The corn syrup helps prevent this from happening, as does boiling the mixture without stirring.

When the mixture has reached 240 degrees, remove the pan from the heat and CAREFULLY pour the sugar over the gelatin stirring to dissolve. I found that the mixture bubbled up as I poured it, so make sure you are very careful. The sugar is extremely hot and sticky (a bad combination). If you are making this with children, obviously don't let them anywhere near this step of the process. With the standing mixer, beat on high until white, thick, and almost tripled in volume, around 8 minutes.

In a separate bowl with clean beaters, whip the egg white to stiff peaks. Beat the egg white and vanilla into the sugar until combined. This step really seemed to change the texture of the mixture and make it somewhat less sticky. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and sift 1/4 cup of powdered sugar over the top. Chill until firm, 3 hours to overnight.

Run a knife around the edge and invert the pan on a cutting board. Lifting up one corner, loosen the marshmallows and ease out onto the cutting board. Trim the edges and cut into 1 in. cubes. Roll in powdered sugar to prevent sticking. I was nervous that these would stick to the pan, but we really had no problem getting them out. We used a lightly oiled board scraper to cut them neatly into squares.

Variations: We made the recipe as stated above, but I've already come up with some great ideas for variations. These marshmallows have a fantastic, strong vanilla flavor. You could substitute peppermint extract for a peppermint marshmallows. A bit of food coloring added to the mixer could also make these colorful and cute. We used the marshmallows for snacking and in hot chocolate, but I'm already excited to make them next summer and use them around a campfire for some wicked s'mores! Finally, I'm pretty sure you could use the mixture without spreading it into the pan the same way you would use a jar of marshmallow fluff. (Homemade marshmallow rice krispie treats, anyone?? Or cream cheese marshmallow fluff fruit dip? The possibilities here are very exciting.) Of course, I haven't tested any of these ideas, so if you do, or if you come up with something else, leave a comment to let us know how it worked!

I really enjoyed writing this guest post and I hope you enjoy this recipe!

One in the Oven

So my sister went to a Baby Shower a few weeks ago and the party favor was a recipe and packaged mix for Honey Buns. They were called "Hunny Buns from the Oven" - get it? - like when you're preggers and they say you have "one in the oven." I thought it was a cute idea.

But they turned out to taste more like "Crappy Buns from the Oven!" Check out the recipe and then I will tell you why they turned out so poorly:

• 1/2 Cup Butter
• 1/2 Cup Packed Brown Sugar
• Chopped Pecans or Walnuts
• 2 Tablespoons Ground Cinnamon
• 2 Cup Bisquick Mix
• 1/3 Cup Applesauce
• 1/3 Cup Milk

Spray a Muffin Pan with Cooking Spray and sprinkle some of the chopped nuts in each of the 12 cups. Then place 2 tablespoons of butter and 2 teaspoons of brown sugar in each muffin cup. (Two tablespoons of butter seemed like an awful lot so I cut it down to one or one and a half) In a mixing bowl, mix the Bisquick, applesauce, ground cinnamon, and milk together to form and concoction that is somewhere between a dough and batter. Not so wet that you could make pancakes with it, but not so doughy that you could make bread - basically it needs to be spoonable, not pourable. Then spoon the mix into the muffin pan and bake for about 10 minutes at 450 F.

So why did mine turn out so bad? Well, even though I knew this was going to happen, I was still too lazy to take the proper precautions - When the butter and brown sugar melted at the bottom of the muffin pans, it was pretty much the same as the slurry from the pecan rolls, which has the tendency to boil over and out of the pans. And if you don't put a cookie sheet underneath to catch the over boiling slurry, it has nowhere to go but the bottom of your oven. Where of course it turns into a smokey burning mess. So while that was happening I rushed to take the Hunny Buns out at their prescribed 10 minutes, which wasn't quite enough time to finish them. It seems that they could have used a little more time to firm up. And even though the slurry was boiling over on some, it seemed to still be strongly buttery on others. So that could have used a few more minutes. They were edible, but not the best.

Definitely a cool idea for a party favor though, it all came in a brown bag with a nice little card with the recipe on it. They even mixed the cinnamon and bisquick and put it in a little baggy. The chopped nuts and brown sugar were in little cups. And the applesauce was in one of those little single serve cups all ready to go. The only thing you had to provide was the butter and milk.

The Christmas Baking Extravaganza will be on Thursday so there should be material for like ten posts coming up soon.

Really Getting Comfortable with Cinnamon Rolls and Sticky Buns

My laziness has kind of taken over lately and resulted in me falling back on the Cinnamon Rolls and Sticky Buns. So last week's absence of posting was just because I made the rolls again and there really wasn't much new to talk about. Although I did try a different recipe for the slurry for the Sticky Buns. This one used heavy whipping cream, which I thought was interesting. The result was a fluffier slurry and not-so-sticky Sticky Buns. Still tasted great, but didn't have that caramelized pull out your fillings stickiness that I like.
Tomorrow I am going to cheat and make some honey buns from a mix so I will have a post on that later this week.
And then next week, I will have a special guest to post on the blog: my sister!
We have about 10 different ideas for an all day baking session so you can look forward to that.