Weekend cooking: Cranberry Marmalade and Homemade Marshmallows
This morning, the first real taste and jell test of the marmalade – a perfect batch. My last batch of marmalade jelled to the consistency of gummy bears. This batch I used the cold plate test as well as the recipe timing and stopped as soon as the mix jelled on the cold plate.
I really enjoy making small batches of jam or marmalade. I used 8 ounces of cranberries, 1 orange and 1/2 lemon with equal weight sugar getting 5 half pint jars with not much fuss and no giant canning pot. This marmalade was in the jars at 8:03 a.m. Sunday morning and the pots and implements washed by 8:30.
After Friday’s sunshine, a cold and wet front moved in and it is supposed to be some form of cold and damp for the week before getting cold enough to snow next weekend.
We are down to less than 10 hours of daylight with the first and last hours being fairly dim between the clouds and the low southern arc of the sun.
Perfect “puttering in the kitchen” weather!
Next up: Peppermint marshmallows
Homemade marshmallow recipes have been making the food blog rounds and I wanted to try. All of the recipes were for stand mixers with the whisk attachment – partly due to a 12 minute mixing time and also incorporating air into the mix.
I don’t have a stand mixer. I DO have a KitchenAid “ultra power” hand mixer. No whisk attachment but I can make meringue with it so thought I had a chance with the marshmallows.
I set up the work area with everything ready. Unflavored gelatin in water is sitting in the mixing bowl while a sugar, corn syrup & salt mix is heating on the stove. A zip loc bag is waiting to be filled with the mix which I planned to pipe dollops onto oiled parchment ala this recipe: Sue of The View from Great Island’s DIY Marshmallow Dollops
After the mix comes to a boil and reaches a temp of 238, it gets added to the gelatin-water mix and that’s when the 12 minute beat to stiff peak procedure gets under way.
I’d read several funny blog posts about how stringy, gooey and VERY sticky the mix is… well, gelatin, corn syrup and sugar = very sticky! One post had dire warnings about resisting temptation to try to scrape bowls, clean beaters or taste with a finger swipe because of the danger of getting stuck to everything and the futility of getting every last bit. Thankfully, they also all said not to worry as everything cleaned up easily in hot water.
I did fairly well. I dipped 1 little spoon in to try a taste and kept a bit of marshmallow souvenir on my upper lip :) !
The hand mixer did fine and I had stiff peaks at about 9 minutes.
Those blobs ??? – they are supposed to be the dollops.
I’m not sure if I didn’t mix long enough, if the hand beater did not incorporate enough air, if I had too large a snip in my zip lock “pastry bag” or ???
After my dollops became blobs, I regrouped and put the rest of the mix in a bread pan to be cut into squares.
Only a partial defeat.
I will try again if I ever finish all of the current batch. I made a 1/2 recipe and have quite a lot of marshmallows!
Flavor-wise and consistency of the squares, I am VERY happy.
There is another recipe, actually an adaptation of a 1998 recipe that uses egg whites folded in at the end, reportedly increasing the light and fluffy. I used a mix of vanilla extract and peppermint extract but there is a peppermint crunch recipe that might be fun to try also.
Hey, you guys want a marshmallow?
I guess not.
*** Edit 11/15 (5 days later): WOW, these got better over time and today, Friday, I am down to 3 left. Although I grabbed several to have a bit of sweet with a cup of tea, mostly I put them in a hot coffee/cocoa/milk mix and blended them. This makes a frothy, thick mocha. The gooeyness of the melty marshmallows plus their flavor makes a perfect mocha. I have tried various combinations of sugar, honey, agave to get the flavor and consistency I wanted. Marshmallows do the trick! And, I read that these freeze beautifully.