We’re in for some chilly nights coming up (at least by LA standards) and so what’s better to warm you up than a steaming mug of hot chocolate topped with a couple marshmallows?  I saw a recipe for homemade marshmallows on Smitten Kitchen the other day and thought that it seemed like a pretty ridiculous thing to DIY, but might be fun to try.  Even if they weren’t better than the store-bought kind, it would be a fun experiment.

Wow, did I luck out.  Homemade marshmallows are leaps and bounds better than the ones from the store and they’re pretty simple to make, though you do need a few kitchen gadgets.  Unfortunately, the batch I made got completely devoured by hungry friends before I had a chance to take pictures, but take a look at the tutorial and hopefully the beautiful photos there will convince you that they’re worth trying.

What you need:

-saucepan
-candy thermometer
-electric mixer (stand or handheld)
-powdered sugar
-granulated sugar
-gelatin
-water
-sugar
-corn syrup
-salt
-vanilla extract (or peppermint, almond, orange…depends how experimental you’re feeling)
-egg whites
-food coloring (optional)
-rectangular baking pan
-cooking spray
-knife
-fridge

Got it all?  Head over to Smitten Kitchen and follow her instructions there.  They’re spot on.  If you only have a hand held mixer, you might want to enlist a helpful friend to trade off mixing with you because your arms will get tired of after almost 20 minutes of beating. If you want them to be a color other than white, add a few drops of food coloring as you’re stirring the sugar mixture in with the egg whites.  I added about five drops of red and it made mine a sweet pink color.  Also, since these have raw egg whites in them, you might not want to feed them to babies/old people/pregnant women/the immunocompromised, etc.

Oh, and if you’re not a fan of hot chocolate, pick up some graham crackers and Hershey’s bars and have a marshmallow roast over one of the burners of your stove.  My friend tried it and said it turned out well.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 21st, 2010 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Craftiness, diy, food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.