Marshmallow Project

I would like to share you, my dear readers, about the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment. This test is given to pre school kids/toddlers to test the little tots’ patience and ability to follow instructions. "A child was offered a choice between one small reward (sometimes a marshmallow, but often a cookie or a pretzel, etc.) provided immediately or two small rewards if he or she waited until the experimenter returned (after an absence of approximately 15 minutes). In follow-up studies, the researchers found that children who were able to wait longer for the preferred rewards tended to have better life outcomes" -Wikipedia I think it’s the cutest test in the world!

Back on my recipe development and writing, remember my Frozen Smore’s? Which I promised to follow up with my own Marshmallow recipe, here it goes. Few years back, one of the best recipes I made for a competition is my Mint Marshmallows. I just like this gooey confection with coolness of a tooth paste in a very palatable way.

MINT MARSHMALLOWS

50g water

20g unflavoured gelatine

200g water

400g sugar

100g corn syrup

220g corn syrup

1 Tbsp Mint oil

50g Dark Chocolate chip, Callebaut

I would like to divide the ingredients into three: In a stainless bowl, bloom 20g gelatine with 50g water. Melt over bain-marie. Once melted, run the melted gelatine in the mixer.

In one sauce pot, combine water, sugar and 100g corn syrup. Cook syrup until soft ball stage. Carefully pour into the melted gelatine. Whip until a sticky-white mixture is formed.

Pour in the remaining corn syrup and mint oil. Fold in the chocolate chip. Whip the mixture until stretchable and pour into a pan lined with foil and dusted with cornstarch or greased with vegetable oil

I used this recipe for my HOFEX entry in 2011. I also did some variations like replacing mint with lemon essence and replacing chocolates with dried cranberry. My tip is not to over whip the mixture or it will be very sticky. If you are flavouring your marshmallows, flavour and colour it while the gelatine hasn’t completely set. Colouring is little technical because as the marshmallow whips, it gets whiter and whiter.

At my day's end, I would always prefer enjoying my Marshmallow by tearing into small pieces and dunking in a bitter-sweet cup of Hot Chocolate or roasting it over Graham crackers and Dark Chocolate or Nutella, clasping my feet together and reading Kitchen Confidential, isn't a good day? :)

Happy Marshmallow making!