Make the Bread, Buy the Butter - Jennifer Reese [55]
After you have tasted a sugar-white homemade marshmallow you will not care. Homemade marshmallows are fairy food, pillowy, quivering, and soft.
Make it or buy it? Make it.
Hassle: Negligible, provided you have a mixer (a handheld mixer is fine if you’re strong and patient) and a candy thermometer. If you don’t have a candy thermometer, buy one. Cheap and useful.
Cost comparison: The most basic homemade marshmallow costs $0.10. Kraft Jet-Puffed marshmallows: $0.04 apiece. On the other hand, high-end marshmallows like the Whole Foods brand: $0.50.
Three ¼-ounce packets unflavored gelatin
1½ cups granulated sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
2 egg whites
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
¼ cup cornstarch
¼ cup confectioners’ sugar
1. In a tiny saucepan, over low heat, dissolve the gelatin in 7 tablespoons water. It will be pale beige and viscous. Turn off the heat.
2. In a larger saucepan, heat the granulated sugar and corn syrup with ½ cup water. Bring to a boil, stirring until dissolved. Let it boil until it registers 265 degrees F on a candy thermometer.
3. Meanwhile, in the bowl of a mixer, begin whisking the egg whites. Beat until firm and glossy. As soon as the sugar syrup registers 265 degrees F, begin pouring it in a slow steady stream into the egg whites, beating constantly. Add the gelatin and continue beating. When you start, the hot liquid will slosh around the bowl and you will think it is hopeless; by the time you are done, the mixture will have swollen into a luxuriant white cloud. Whisk until the bowl is cool to the touch.
4. Whisk in the vanilla.
5. Lightly grease a rimmed cookie sheet. Mix together the cornstarch and confectioners’ sugar and sift half onto the cookie sheet. You want a really generous bed of powder. On top of this, spread the marshmallow and smooth the top. Let sit overnight.
6. In the morning, cut the marshmallows into 36 pieces with a sharp knife. If they stick, dip the knife in water. (Damp scissors can also help with the job.) Toss the marshmallows in the leftover powder; you want all the exposed sides of the marshmallows to be lightly coated in powder, which will keep them from sticking to each other.
7. Store in a cookie tin or resealable plastic bag. They keep indefinitely, though they become crustier and less appealing after a week or so.
Makes 36 marshmallows
CHOCOLATES
Few retail experiences are more gratifying than walking into an old-fashioned chocolate shop like See’s, studying the array of candies in their frilled paper cups, giving an order to one of the ladies wearing a white uniform, and watching her assemble the selection in a box. If candy can ever be wholesome, candy store candy is wholesome.
Isabel once made cupcakes and had some leftover penuche icing that tasted like the filling of a See’s Bordeaux chocolate. She and I spent the better part of a Saturday afternoon making heart-shaped chocolates in cheap plastic molds and filling them with penuche. It was messy and finical and the resulting candies were very cute, but no one liked them as much as See’s chocolates. The chocolate shell was too hard and had raggedy edges and it was a little too bitter. There was no selection and there was no box. There was no ceremony. Chocolates are special in part because they are bought.
I think the only reason to make your chocolates is if you’re throwing a party and buy some plastic molds in the form of golf clubs, or hula dancers, or whatever your theme might be, and make personalized chocolates with some unique filling, like, I don’t know, rose geranium cream. I would love to throw such a party, but even more I would love to be invited to such a party, and I suspect neither is ever going to happen.
Buy your filled chocolates.
Truffles are another story. They’re just chocolate ganache flavored any way you like and scooped into little balls.
Make it or buy it? Make it.
Hassle: Actually, yes. These are a hassle.
Cost