DIY Marshmallow Madness

When I saw that Zanne had posted photos of marshmallows that she and her daughter made, I knew we had to try them ourselves. This time of the year, I’m thinking about putting marshmallows on everything – from today’s Thanksgiving sweet potatoes, to my hot cocoa, to sticks to dangle over the backyard campfire. Between what Zanne shared and the word on the street, I understood that homemade marshmallows were incomparable to any other.

And this I now know to be true. Plus, you can make them look like smiley faces.

Admittedly, our end result didn’t look as pretty as Zanne’s, but we’re DIY marshmallow newbies, and Pete’s 5-year old was head chef of the event, so, that should say enough. They did taste wonderful though.

They’ve been on my foodie-DIY list for awhile, and I don’t often publish food tutorials (although I said that last month too when I showed you my DIY Greek Yogurt), I bookmarked this Martha Stewart recipe awhile back, and I trust Martha.

The recipe was basically as easy as making simple syrup: bringing sugar to a boil and then mixing it with unflavored gelatin. The hardest part for me, being unflavored-gelatin-shopping-virgin, was finding the recommended Knox Gelatin, so I settled on this goofy stuff produced by Jello.

Side note: The idea of fruit juice- or soda-Jello makes me want to vom.

We (Pete) even bought my first hand-held mixer for the marshmallow event (Oster branded, from Target). We whipped that stuff into oblivion, or, you know, until it created peaks just like Martha’s recipe suggested. It was actually an amazing transformation to watch it convert from a clear liquid to a tangible treat, and when it was done, it tasted just like marshmallow fluff. (Pete: We had whip fever.)

Instead of using a pastry bag to create symmetrical marshmallow lumps, we used a plastic bag with a hole cut from the corner and smushed shapes, letters, and names onto a piece of wax paper, then decorated those piles with loose sugar, coconut flakes, and chocolate chips.

We also make faux-smores, sans fire, and sans graham crackers. The salty cracker was actually delish with the marshmallow sweetness.

Martha’s instructions don’t warn specifically of this, but any of the fluff that you leave sitting in the mixing bowl will congeal into one solid marshmallow blob that you can pretty easily chop through with a butter knife. Other tutorials I read advised you to spread the fresh fluff into a greased pan and actually cut it with scissors. A fun tip: When you accidentally leave them exposed to air overnight (oops) they’ll turn into the equivalent of a Lucky Charms marshmallow. Yum.

Happy T-Day, friends. I hope you’re all enjoying your day.