Homemade Valentine Marshmallows

Hello everyone! Hope you had a great week! I was back in the kitchen this week and I’m so excited to share with you my homemade marshmallows.

They have been on my list of sweets to make for some time now, and I finally got around to them.

Well, I’m sure glad I did! Now that I’ve tasted homemade, I’m not quite sure I can go back to store bought. They are easy to make, tasty and so pretty, too!

I looked around for some recipes and decided on one from Martha. She has a few of them, but I went with this one. It seems a little scary, but it isn’t. As always when cooking or baking, read your instructions through first and have everything ready to go.

Ingredients:

• Vegetable cooking spray
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 tablespoon light corn syrup
• 4 packages unflavored gelatin (1/4 ounce each)
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract (or 3/4 tsp.peppermint extract)
• Pink food coloring (pic shows red, oops!)

Directions:

1. Coat a cookie sheet with cooking spray and line it with parchment paper. Coat parchment paper with cooking spray.

2. Put sugar, corn syrup, and 3/4 cup water in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring, until sugar is dissolved. Stop stirring and let mixture come to a boil. Raise heat to medium-high. Cook until mixture registers 260 degrees on a candy thermometer. (Remember not to let the candy thermometer touch the bottom of pan. If it does, you’ll get an incorrect temperature reading.) (Refer to image on left below.)

3. Meanwhile, sprinkle gelatin packets over 3/4 cup water in a heatproof bowl. Let stand 5 minutes to soften. Set the bowl with the gelatin mixture over a pan of simmering water; whisk constantly until gelatin is dissolved. Remove from heat, and stir in vanilla extract and set aside. (Refer to image on right above.)

4. Beat egg whites in the bowl with electric beater until stiff peaks form. Whisk gelatin mixture into sugar mixture; with mixer running, gradually add the egg whites. Mix on high speed until very thick, 12 to 15 minutes.

5. Pour mixture into lined pan spreading evenly as possible. Work very quickly because it sets fast. Drop dots of pink food coloring across surface of marshmallow. I used a spoon to mix the coloring in. You have to work very fast here. (No pic of this step, sorry).

6. Let marshmallow stand, uncovered, at room temperature until firm, at least 3 hours. I let mine sit overnight.

7. Spray heart cookie cutter with cooking spray. Lift marshmallow out of pan by lifting the parchment paper and set on work surface. Press cookie cutter into marshmallow then remove the heart shape.

It cuts through fine as long as the cutter is greased.

(If you prefer to cut into squares instead, that’s fine, just spray a long knife with cooking spray. It pulls a little but it will release. I didn’t have any problems. with it.)

Voila! It makes quite a few marshmallows. Wrap them up for gifts, put  them in hot chocolate or just enjoy a sweet treat.

 

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