Another Step Towards Crazy
Monday, November 30, 2009 at 6:09AM First it was homeschooling. Then it was homemade hotdog buns. Homemade swiffer covers. Homemade yogurt. Homemade sausage. And now it's homemade marshmallows. Yes, it's a slippery slope to crazy - pretty soon I'll be wearing prairie dresses, growing my own wheat, and baking bread in a solar oven out in my yard. I'll have seven more babies and name them all Henry. I'll grow my hair to my waist, and when I'm a guest in some misguided, grocery store frequenting, white flour eating woman's home I'll take one bite of her cornbread and say, "You don't grind your own cornmeal, do you?"
Somebody stop me! Please! But not yet, because these marshmallows are awesome. Anemone and I made them using a recipe from one of the many cookbooks she checks out of the library each week - Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It and Other Cooking Projects by Karen Solomon. (I like this gal - she has a recipe to make your own bacon. BACON! If only I had three pounds of pork belly handy...)
Then put 1/3 cup of water (I used bottled water because my tap water tastes funny) in your trusty Kitchen-Aid mixer and sprinkle three 1/4 oz. packets of unflavored gelatin over it. Let it sit for ten minutes.
You will end up with a nasty, rubbery gelatin pancake that looks like something you left in the back of the fridge for months, and you and your daughter will poke it and prod it and say, "Ewwww!" and be so grossed out that you forget to take pictures.
Now clip a candy thermometer to the side of a saucepan (making sure Anemone doesn't let it touch the bottom of the pan) and combine 1 cup of light corn syrup, 1 cup of granulated sugar, 1/3 cup of water, and a dash of kosher salt. Cook on medium high heat, NOT stirring, to 240 degrees. It doesn't take very long, so stop playing around with the gelatin pancake and pay attention.
With your Kitchen-Aid on low speed, pour the sugar syrup over the gelatin (Anemone really wanted to do this part, but I just couldn't let her - I've had too many bad experiences with hot sugar syrup) and add 1 teaspoon of vanilla. Increase the speed to medium high and beat for 8-13 minutes, until it looks like this:
Oil a spatula (or a non-stick rice server - Anemone has such good ideas) and spread the marshmallow mixture into the sugared baking dish.
The directions said to smooth out the top with your wet hands, but we decided to skip that part. We don't do perfect food around here.
Let it sit for about an hour. While you're waiting, you can hose down your Goobs. Somehow they've gotten warm marshmallow goop in their eyelashes.
After the marshmallow goop has set up, run a knife along the edges to loosen it and then dump it out onto a rimmed cookie sheet you've filled with powdered sugar. Stand back and admire the biggest marshmallow you've ever seen, then use a sharp, wet knife to cut into squares.
Coat the squares in powdered sugar. I wish I could describe to you the texture of these mallows - they're just so marshmallow-y. I ate many marshmallows. So will you.
Dunk the ones you didn't eat in hot chocolate. Oh. Oh, my.
Somebody help me. I don't want to wear prairie dresses.
Reader Comments (13)
You have gone off the deep end. I'll pay $1 and eat chemical laden store-bought marshmallows. I told you that I am a failure as a homeschool mother.
Waist-length hair would be bad. Especially if you felt compelled to also make your own shampoo.
But I can't, in good conscience, stop you from making your own marshmallows. Some things are too delicious for an intervention.
Ooohh! Yummy!
Oh, now those look tasty. I may have to try those.
Ha. I have waist length hair & love my long skirts & dresses ~ but I'm a disaster in the kitchen if I stray too far into the realm of 'homemade'. There was this
loaf of breaddoorstop //eh, nevermind.OMgosh sugar. Sugar sugar sugar!!! Yes, I like.
Love that they're square. Rebel marshmallows!
Now that is the ONLY way to eat a marshmallow --- a "rebel marshmallow" LOL, that's good.
You've went and done it now. I guess you are doomed to wearing prairie dresses and cute little lace up boots. =)
I saw Martha Stewart make marshmallows once. So you not be heading toward denim jumpers but crazed perfectionism wherein your idea of a casual meal involves three forks and individual salt cellars. Either way.
I burned my finger on hot sugar this weekend when I sprinkled sugar and cinnamon on the extra store bought pie crust and baked it for fake cookies. Does that count as cooking?
Do prairie women make marshmallows?
You don't seem to have made as big a sticky mess than when I made marshmallows. Maybe I need to wear a prairie dress.
Um, when you DO start wearing the prairie dress, with your hair down to your butt and covered with light lacy cloth, please post pictures. I gotta see that!
You made me laugh so much because I'm going through something like this. DIY has become my way of life. The marshmallows look great! Yummmmm...
I bought gelatin today. I am going to make them!
You also knit which some people regard as weird/old-fashioned. Typically though, they won't say it again after you stab them with a knitting needle.
My kids would love to do this, they are feeling a bit deprived because of the new diet. I think I can even do the hot chocolate dairy-free. On the other hand, I should probably focus on finding a gluten-free bread that we want to eat. But marshmallows sound so much more fun.
hi, i love your blog! I too am using The Well Trained Mind. I didn't know it was possible to make homemade marshmallows! I will have to try this! But before I do, I have to ask you, I think there's a step missing at the beginning and I am nowhere near growing my own wheat so I can't figure it out. :D Can you email me the first step? Also, I read your post about not using a program for literature. That's what I'm doing right now. I just wanted to ask you about that, do you read one book all the way through and then move on to the next? Or do you somehow manage a few at a time? My son, eldest, is only 6 right now (gr 1) so not a big deal, really, but I feel like a slacker compared to the ladies in the group I belong to. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
By the way, I'm trying to become a prairie dress-wearing, wheat-growing, and bread-baking in a solar oven out in my yard-homesteader. :D We'll see how that goes. We need a certain amount of space before we can embark on that particular adventure.