Another sweet treat I pumped out over the holiday was a crap ton of marshmallows. A friend of mine has made marshmallows before and I’ve always wanted to make them, I just never put the effort and time towards it. I finally mustard up the courage to make the marshmallows. I was armed with two recipes. They were both fairly similar, just two very minor differences. The first recipe I used was from How Sweet Eats. She made bourbon marshmallows a while back and of COURSE I had to get on that train. The second recipe was from Alton Brown. Traditional homemade marshmallows.
Both required gelatin, white sugar, corn syrup, ice cold water, confectioners sugar and patience. How Sweet’s halved the water quantity, making it half water and half bourbon. She also used egg whites.
The above picture was gelatin and melted sugars doing their thing.
This is where the two recipes differ. How Sweets says to add whipped egg whites into this. This is also where I made a HUGE, MESSY MISTAKE. I didn’t read the recipe thoroughly. I had to remove the soft marshmallow blob from the mixing bowl and whisk, whip up my egg whites and combine everything. Don’t do this. Please. The mallow started to harden and it was a mess. I got it everywhere. It was a PITA to clean up surfaces I couldn’t soak in a sink full of hot water. Also, whipping the egg whites back into this mess was also painful to watch. If you choose How Sweets recipe, arm yourself with a second mixing bowl or whip your whites before the mallow. Learn from my mistakes.
Alton doesn’t use egg whites. Point for Alton, one bowl mess! He uses the same amount of ingredients as How Sweets, so you can easily sub in your bourbon.
Once your mallow is whipped to perfection, dump it into a well greased and dusted pan to set for at least three hours. I let mine sit overnight.
Once the pan of marshmallows has firmed up, transfer it to a cutting board and cut into whatever size marshmallows you desire. Dust all freshly cut sides of the marshmallows with confectioners sugar so they don’t stick to everything. Also dust your knife/kitchen shears to make it easy. I went with a smaller size to go along with a homemade hot chocolate mix.
The egg whites in How Sweet’s recipe made the marshmallows lighter and airy, but it wasn’t a needed step. It caused more of a messy headache than anything. I wish I took a photo of the mess but I’m pretty sure I got marshmallow goo all over my phone and didn’t want to get more on it. They still tasted delish, but you can achieve a great marshmallow with Alton’s recipe. I’m giving Alton the win on this round.
I got great reviews on the marshmallows. They didn’t melt too fast into coffee or hot chocolate, leaving you with a nice treat at the end of your drink. Yay!