Cooking For Engineers

camp0s · Joined: 15 Jul 2006 Posts: 5

Hi to all !

I'm having some problems with the marshmallow recipe found here http://www.cookingforengineers.com/article.php?id=106, my marshmallow do not puff, they just stay at a cream/liquid level... i tryed 5 times, but i never got a succes !

I live in italy, so it's little difficul&expensive to get right components and i'm losing faith i will ever see something fluffing white in my mixer... Sad

Can someone give me a little troubleshooting? i'm actually missing some flair in kitcken Sad

To not to waste components i divided by two the amounts:

I take the gelatin+water -> 10 minutes to jellyfy (gelatin absorb water and i get a sort of light brown transparent mass)

I take sugar+corn syrup+water-> in a pan on the fire, turn with a spoon till the sugar dropped in water makes hard balls

Mixer pan: i put in bloomed gelatin and hot solution and mix. Add salt and vanilla... BUT it doesn't fluff; the same consistence was the liquid in the pan on fire, the same remains here, like gelatin isn't doing his job... te solution has the same consistence of corn syrup...

Where could be the error ? i'm sick of eating my "monsters" and not marshmallows... Unsure

Thank you !!!

Michael Chu · Joined: 10 May 2005 Posts: 1654 Location: Austin, TX (USA)

Hmmm... you might not be heating the sugar to a high enough temperature if it's staying liquid as it begins to cool. (Or the water in the sugar hasn't cooked out.) Try starting with a reduced amount of water in the syrup and sugar mixture - just enough to wet the sugar a little to help the melting process.

Also, check the labels on all your ingredients to make sure that they don't contain some other unpredictable substances that might interfere with the marshmallow making process. Go ahead and post the ingredients of your components here and we'll see if we can figure this out...

camp0s · Joined: 15 Jul 2006 Posts: 5

Right:

my ingredients are:

knox gelatine unflavored, the same as the pictures
karo, light corn syrup, with real vanilla
normal granulated white sugar (not critical)
water (not critical)
salt (not critical)
vanilla taste (not critical)

Look here http://www.camp0s.com/fun_stuffs/marsh/marsh.html this is the result:

the upper is white and sticky, the bottom is brown (colored like gelatin in the water) and when i cut i can feel the granulated sugar still there.

When i cook the sugar, water and syrup i take care to get it to boiling, then i lower the fire, and while still boiling i stir it (no, it doesn't become brown sugar, no smell of cooked sugar).

I'm not quite sure of quantities, i'm doing half the recipe, so, on the fire i put:

200gr of sugar
80ml o corn syrup
30ml of water

It's normal all that sugar? and so few water? what is the consistence, and about time, what could it be a safe boiling&stirring time?

(sorry for my english, but i don't talk about cooking so much nor i know many words Big smile

)

Michael Chu · Joined: 10 May 2005 Posts: 1654 Location: Austin, TX (USA)

Interesting....

The sugar and water mixture is used to make it easier to bring the sugar to an even melt. Afterward, we want to boil the water off and then heat the melted sugar until it has very low water content and has reached the hard ball stage (sounds like this is accomplished from the description in your first post). It is unnecessary (and generally discouraged) to stir the sugar while heating. It is said that this may cause seed crystals to form giving the final sugar a granulated texture. I haven't tested this theory, so I'm not sure if it is simply a kitchen myth or there is truth in it. In any case, I didn't stir my sugar while it was heating.

When mixing the sugar into the gelatin, I did it slowly in a steady stream while the mixer was running. Then after all of it was in the bowl, I cranked up the mixer to the highest speed I could without splattering. As it thickened up, I turned the mixer to the fastest possible setting. What speed were you running your mixer on?

From your pictures, it seems like the bottom (gelatin) layer is solid... is this the case or is it all liquid and gooey (the impression I got from your first post)?

camp0s · Joined: 15 Jul 2006 Posts: 5

camp0s · Joined: 15 Jul 2006 Posts: 5

I did another attemp Big smile

Water + gelatin all right;
Water+sugar+syrup: this time i put less water, i weighted 30gr of water (rather than using more or less 30ml from graduated scale) and let it on the fire for 10 minutes at very low fire, low but enought to boil.

Then happened what i worried before: when i took the hot mixture and mix it slowly with the gelatin while in the mixer... the first part of the hot mixute just solidified almost immediately in the pan ! it stuck the mixer, i big stone of solid sugar was spinning from side to side... arrgghhh ! i immediately added the remaining hot mixture, took a spon and hit that "mass", i was near declaring surrender, while suddenly the mass stuck on the bottom, so with the handheld mixer i started abrating it.... and it started fluffing !

Well... the final result is a homogenous white ultra dense ultra sticky "stuff", the taste is near caramel... but the sugar was not brown... uhmmm

It's soft, but not fluffed at all, the taste is somewhere good, when i added salt and vanilla it was already the consistence of mastic ! incredibile hard to mix !

For the next try i will do 2 adjustement:

_ Cook the sugar for 7 minutes
_ Use the cooking pan to mix, i will put in little by little the gelatin and mix in the HOT pan, so i won't have anymore trouble with solidification...

Any othe suggestion ?

Michael Chu · Joined: 10 May 2005 Posts: 1654 Location: Austin, TX (USA)

I'm travelling right now, but when I get home to my mixer I'll do a half recipe and see what happens.

camp0s · Joined: 15 Jul 2006 Posts: 5

I'm back again !

I did it another time: half recipe, boiled sugar for 7 minutes then turned off the fire, powered the mixer IN the boiling pan and slowly putted the gelatin in the mixture.

G R E A T !

As i was pouring gelatin the mixture got tight ! after 5 minutes the mass was soft, white, dry and tripled volume !

After cooling i cutted and wrapped all the small cubes with powdere sugar.

They taste "soft", they melt in the mouth, they are great !

Next time i will try to find some flavour, cherry, chocolate, or other Smile

There is only one drawnback... living in Italy it difficult to found Corn Syrup and Know Gelatin, or at least a replacement (the gelatin i found is not behaving like knox). Is there someone who travel (well ,who knows ingredients here and there) and does know what to use "here"? Having components shipped overseas... adds 24$ as shipping to the total costs... Sad

quite expensive as recipe Big smile

(i wish i was born in America... Wink

)

Jay Francis · Joined: 14 Apr 2006 Posts: 11 Location: Houston, Texas

3 envelopes of Knox gelatin
1/2 cup cold water
2 cups granulated sugar
2/3 cups corn syrup
1/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

In the bowl of an electric mixer, sprinkle gelatin over 1/2 cup cold water. Soak for 10 minutes. Combine sugar, corn syrup, and 1/4 cup water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and boil hard for 1 minute. Pour boiling syrup into gelatin and mix at high speed. Add the salt and beat for 12 minutes. Add vanilla and incorporate into mixture. Scrape into a 9 x 9-inch pan lined with oiled plastic wrap and spread evenly. (Note: Lightly oil hands and spatula or bowl scraper). After pouring marshmallow mixture into the pan, take another piece of plastic wrap and press mixture into the pan.

Let mixture sit for a few hours. Remove from pan, dredge the marshmallow slab with confectioners' sugar and cut into 12-20 equal pieces with scissors (the best tool for the job) or a chef's knife. Dredge each piece of marshmallow in confectioners' sugar.

This is a fool proof recipe. The trick is to have a strong enough mixer to do the beating. The sugar syrup temperature should be 340 F. Use corn syrup or glucose with the sugar, the reason for the two sugars is to prevent crystallization. You shouldn't have to do much stirring, but stirring shouldn't affect anything.

This recipe goes well into a greased 9" x 9" or 8" x 8" pan

Also, for cutting the marshmallow pieces, I have found that wetting the hands and the cutting blade reallly helps keep things from sticking.

One packet of Knox gelatin is 1.8 grams of gelatin so three packets would be 5.4 grams of gelatin.

mpgan · Guest

I've been making these morsels for several years now. Honestly, the hardest part is not eating them all before guests arrive.

A couple critical tips -
1. do not boil past 340 degrees, or the marshmallows will be too chewy.
2. make sure you bloom the gelatin before using, knox is OK, but inquire at your local bakery for commercial gelatin for even better results.
3. I've always coated my pans with corn starch which seems to protect the 'mallows better in humid climates, rather than powdered sugar. I coat the bottom of the pan, no oil/butter/grease, and coat the top liberally, then coat the cutting board as well when cutting them up.
4. I've always had great results blooming the gelatin in my kitchenaid mixing bowl and then adding the corn syrup misture to the gelatin and letting the mixer run on medium spead for 7-8 minutes BEFORE adding the vanilla or flavoring of choice.

Cheers all.