Can you believe that these marshmallows have no food coloring! The bright pink is all natural! Read on to find out why.I love ‘smores. Love love love. They’re gooey and sticky and just plain remind us that we don’t have to be civilized all of the time. Sometimes we can just be messy and silly and remember what it’s like to be a kid.
So, I tried yet again to make homemade marshmallows. And again, they failed. Now, by fail, it’s not that they weren’t tasty…but they weren’t what I wanted them to be. I’ll get to that in a moment. Using 3 containers of fresh raspberries, fresh squeezed lemon juice, lemon zest, the usual ingredient suspects (gelatin, corn syrup, sugar), and this recipe from Couldn’t Be Parve, I whipped the ingredients into submission…or so I thought.
These raspberries are gonna get it.
This rapsberry puree is what gives the marshmallows their explosive color. Though I highly recommend purchasing a food mill for this recipe as pushing the puree through a strainer (so that no seeds end up in your final product) is quite tedious. Once the mixture was heated, and whipped, and poured into the glass pan, I let them sit for 36 hours or so in the hopes that they would set up perfectly and would keep their pretty sugar coating. Then I cut them with an oiled knife. And, finally, I dusted them with a mixture of icing sugar and cornstarch.
Now, if only they had stayed dusted. Sigh. Every time I’ve made homemade marshmallows, they inevitably end up eventually absorbing all of their sugar (hungry little buggers) and getting sticky. Grrrr. But, with the help of Stella Parkes at BraveTart, I think I know what I’m doing wrong. I’m overcooking the gelatin. According to Stella, I need to make sure that “the hot sugar mixture cools to 210° before adding it to the gelatin, this damages the strength of the gelatin and creates a poor set.” Aha!!! Thank you, Stella. I will use this knowledge when I make your vanilla bean marshmallows!