Cooking For Engineers

[dross]

you could try gum arabic if you look on store bought marshmallows its in them. Also its the fructose in the corn syrup which is important because it allows the marshmallow to remain soft and not turn into a hard candy so good luck replacing that.

[Guest]

[guest]

Hi,

I had made marshmallow which had egg whites before I found your site. The recipe's steps are almost the same exept including beaten to stiff whites. Mine came out very tasty, but somehow a bit rubberish. Does anybody know what made the marshmellow rubbery? I suspect the gelatine, but I followed the recipe precisely.

Thank you,
Ema5friends@yahoo.com

PS. I am very happy finding your site and very soon will try your marshmellow recipe w/o whites.

[brianna from MO, USA]

Has anyone tried using a hand mixer for this recipe?

[Ozymandia]

I was just about to post about this when I noticed the latest question is re using a hand mixer for this recipe.

I made this yesterday and, since I don't have a stand mixer nor the money to buy one right now, I used my hand mixer. It worked, but it makes the process a lot more fraught with danger. Trying to keep the bowl form moving, use the mixer, and drizzle the hot sugar mixture into the bowl at the same time is not easy.

The marshmallow itself came out fantastic, so the lack of a stand mixer did nothing to harm the outcome of the recipe itself. But if you don't have a stand mixer, I would highly recommend having two people available to do the pouring/mixing/adding of salt and vanilla. Or a great deal of dexterity and *full* attention on what you are doing. One or the other.

[alice at angel food]

i hope it's ok to promote a new product on this forum.
i'm very excited about this! that's why i'm using so many exclamation
marks!!!!!
we're making great vegan marshmallows here at angel food, but because they only have a two-week shelf-life, it's difficult to get them far
out of auckland, let alone to the US of A.
so, we've developed a DIY kit so that you can make a batch whenever the need arises.
the kits are NZ$10 including postage to the US. for that, you get the
specialist ingredients (and the recipe) for making about 50 good-sized
marshies. you just need to add sugar, syrup, water, vanilla essence and
starch/coconut (for coating the marshies).
great deal, huh?! you also need a candy thermometer, and a stand mixer is best but a hand-held electric beater will also do the job.
hope you're as excited about this as i am!
cheers
alice
www.angelfood.co.nz (altho the marshie kits are so new that they aren't
up on the web site yet...)

ps the kits won't be available in shops, only by mail order from us.

[rich13348]

Hi,
I used a recipe from james martin (a chef in Britain) Link: http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/577053

instead of using corn syrup use sugar and water boiled up to a syrup also the egg whites are cooked by adding boiling sugar so no problem there. i also used sheet gelatine instead of powder and that recipe wrked brilliantly

[wangela]

Thanks for this recipe, Michael! We made these for my birthday party and they were a hit!

I used a hand mixer, so our marshmallows were about half as high as yours (not as fluffy) even though we too used a 9x13 dish, but they're still plenty soft so the fluff wasn't missed. I wouldn't recommend making it with a hand mixer because ours became dangerously overworked toward the end when the sugar started solidifying and the marshmallow fluff got progressively stiffer. The mixer got hot and stopped being able to turn, like an elephant with its foot stuck in a tar pit.

[marshmallow!!!]

why do they mention 2 large egg whites in other recipes...... does it make a difference if we use them or not????

[Guest]

for the user below - you're correct, agar agar is a likely candidate but the substitution could get complicated. instead, there are veg-friendly jel-like products that, measure-for-measure, work just like gelatin.

i can find them in the baking section at my local whole foods, but many stores that carry kosher foods will carry a vegan gelatin. just be sure you're not purchasing the fish variety.

check food fight! grocery @ http://store.foodfightgrocery.com/jeldesserts.html -- i'm sure they've got it.

[Guest]

When you are letting the gelatin "bloom" are you supposed to be mixing it with the electric mixer or no?

[Michael Chu]

[zouel_p6]

hi! I was kinda frustrated doing the recipe... i dunno but it didn't turn right for me... i followed every single instruction to the details... but to no avail, it turned out to be a failure! i even tried it twice meaning i waisted twice the recipe... i was wondering where and what did i miss? i even waited for like 20 minutes on the beating time... yet, there was not even a sign of improvement unlike when i make meringue for my chiffon cakes... my 2 year old son loves marshmallows a lot that is why i tried making them for him... please help!

thanks in advance.

[Michael Chu]

[claire]

I tried to make these.. I let the gelatin bloom, boiled up the sugar to hard ball and started mixing them together. However, after about five minutes the mixture had failed to fluff up at all and I was at a loss at what to do. Eventually I gave up and was about to pour the mixture away when it dawned on me that I could try changing the mixing utensil.. you see I was using the K beater, which when swapped for the whisk beater completely transformed the mixture so quickly i barely had time to add the flavouring before it had expanded to such a state that it could no longer be whisked!
Feeling slightly stupid at my mixing utensil silliness I ended up with A LOT of delicious marshmallow.
Just goes to show.. if at first you don't succeed, use the proper mixing utensils!!