This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Bristol chapter.
The humble marshmallow has gone gourmet. Say goodbye to cupcake mania, it turns out that there’s a lot more to a marshmallow than a means to Chubby Bunny. Chefs have been getting creative with natural flavourings (check out London Marshmallows for some serious cravings). Being gluten free, dairy free and fat free marshmallows are a delightfully light way of getting your sugar fix.
I turned my hand to these squishy delights and they didn’t disappoint. Whilst I stuck to a basic vanilla recipe, you can add natural flavour with a fruit purée or just an innocent fruit smoothie!
Warning: May cause severe sugar headache due to necessary bowl licking whilst making.
Ingredients:
- 25g icing sugar
- 25g cornflour
- 2 tablespoons powdered gelatine
- 90ml water
- 200g caster sugar
- 1 and a half teaspoons golden syrup
- 1 egg white
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Method:
- Oil a deep tray (about 7cm deep/25cm long). Sift together the icing sugar and cornflour. Use about half the mixture to sift over your oiled tin to coat.
- Soften the gelatine in 50ml of water in a small saucepan, off the heat.
- In another saucepan, add the caster sugar, golden syrup and the rest of the water and place on a simmer. Stir to dissolve sugar. Bring the syrup to a boil. If you have a sugar thermometer (unlikely at uni…) then heat to 127 celsius. If not heat the syrup until it forms a hard ball – you can test this by dropping a spoonful into cold water and forming the ball between your fingers.
- While the sugar boils, whisk your egg white.
- Just before the sugar reaches hard ball stage, place the softened gelatine over a low heat until dissolved.
- Combine the syrup and gelatine by pouring the gelatine mixture into the syrup and whisking by hand (be careful here, the mixture bubbles quite dramatically!!).
- Add your vanilla extract, and any other flavourings you like.
- Pour this mixture into your egg white in a slow stream, whisking as you pour, until all incorporated.
- Whisk on a medium to high speed for 5 minutes, until thick. Pour into your tin and smooth on top. Work quickly here, it starts to set immediately!
- Leave to set for an hour, then turn onto a surface dusted with the rest of your icing sugar/corn flour mix.
- Cut into cubes and serve!