The other day, when I was sick and in bed, I was perusing the April 2010 Food Network Magazine. There, I saw an awesome picture of these pretty pastel marshmallows. And as pictures like these are supposed to, they ignited a desire for marshmallows. So, I went online to find the site where these came from and I proceeded to drool, metaphorically, of course. There were over 2 dozen flavors of marshmallows there.
Then, I thought, I can make some.
This is not the first time I tried to make marshmallows. For some reason, I always seem to get in that mood in the summertime, which is probably the absolute worst time to try something like this. The first time I tried, I was adhering to a vegetarian diet, so gelatin was not an option for me. The result turned out to be a sugary gel. Yeah.
The second time I tried to make marshmallows, I don’t know what happened. I suspect that I was using an online recipe that perhaps didn’t get transcribed properly. Or maybe I just misunderstood the instructions. Either way, something was wrong with them. They tasted fine, but the texture was all wrong.
Inspired by the multiple flavors I saw, I wondered if I could make marshmallows using Jell-O. So, I poked around on the internet and found a recipe. There was feedback somewhere else, though, said that a similar recipe turned out to be “too wet and soft.” After I recovered from the trauma of that phrase, I decided that I would give it a go anyway; however, I decided to add more gelatin. So, I dissolved a little package of unflavored gelatin in water and added the mixture from the recipe to that. I had also cooked the mixture until it was around 218 degrees, more cooking than is suggested by this recipe.
My stand mixer does not come with a whisk attachment. As I watched the beginning of the mixing part of the process, this seemed to be a problem. My stick blender, however does have a whisk attachment. So, I used it to get the fluffing started, then switched back to the stand mixer. Already, this was looking like it was going to turn out better than earlier attempts.
Luckily, I had warned Alex that this might not work.
But it did, and we had blue raspberry flavored marshmallows. Now, I’m curious about a few other flavors, specifically, lime, margarita, piña colada, strawberry daiquiri, watermelon, strawberry-banana and pineapple. Or you could just try making the other flavors and let me know how they turn out.