Homemade Marshmallows
Nothing is better than homemade marshmallows. If you are up for the challenge, our tip is to bring them up to temperature slowly. Otherwise, you are at risk for a mess.
Prepare a 9x13-in. glass baking pan by greasing it with butter and sifting powdered sugar over it to coat the bottom and sides.
The recipe calls for 3 envelopes of Knox gelatin and 1/2 cup cold water. 3 envelopes of gelatin is equivalent to 3 tablespoons or 21 grams of powdered gelatin. Make sure you use the unsweetened and unflavored kind.
Pour the water and gelatin into the bowl of my stand mixer to allow the gelatin to bloom. The recipe calls the gelatin to bloom for ten minutes.
While the gelatin was blooming, measure out 2 cups of sugar, 2/3 cup corn syrup, and 1/4 cup water.
Bring the mixture to a boil. Instead of boiling for one minute, allow it to boil until the sugar's temperature passed 250°F. This brings the sugar into what is known as the hard-ball stage (when dropping the sugar into some water will form a hard ball that is not easily deformed) and is the traditional temperature of sugar used for making marshmallows.
Mix at low speed while drizzling in the boiling sugar syrup. Once the syrup was mixed in, turn up the speed a little and added about 1/4 tsp. salt. The recipe calls for mixing at a high speed, but don’t turn up the speed to high without risking splattering 200°F sugar everywhere.
When the mixture begins to fluff up, scrape down the bowl and turned up the speed to high.
Once the volume of the marshmallow stopped increasing, add 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract. After the extract was mixed in, stop the mixer. This took about 8 minutes from when mixing started.
Pour the marshmallows into the prepared pan and smoothed roughly with a silicone spatula. Several internet recipes recommend oiling plastic wrap and using it to flatten the top of the marshmallow.
Let the marshmallow cool and set by leaving it on the dining table uncovered overnight. Then invert the pan over a cutting board covered in powdered sugar. Release the marshmallow buy pulling from a corner and working the marshmallow loose from the baking pan.
Use a large pizza wheel to section the marshmallows one row at a time and dredging each piece in powdered sugar until the sides weren't sticky anymore.
