cupcake hero - marshmallow

The cupcake hero theme for March is marshmallow. In NZ we don’t have marshmallow fluff and lots of the other marshmallow products that they have in the States, so I decided to make my own marshmallow and I came up with these rose scented marshmallow cupcakes. These are my favourite cupcakes yet!! They honestly taste like eating rose scented clouds!!!



I have only made marshmallow once before and that time the recipe was egg whites beaten with sugar and then gelatine added. This time I used a recipe where you made a hot sugar syrup and added that to the beaten egg whites with the gelatine. The marshmallow had the most amazing texture!! It was incredibly light and fluffy. I followed a recipe for rose marshmallow from an Epicurean cook school class I went to a few years ago – the recipe has also been in Dish. I scattered the bottom of the tray with dried rose petals and also sprinkled some on the top before the marshmallow set. The only thing that went wrong, was that I dropped some of the hot syrup on my toe (I was wearing jandles) and got a big burn blister on my toe. Ouch!!!

I actually took some of the cut pieces of marshmallow to our work bbq on Saturday night – I put it on a dessert platter with some other wee treats (more about that in future posts).



I wanted my cake to be nice and light with just a hint of rose. I followed the Crabapple Bakery recipe for vanilla cupcakes, but added a tbsp of rose water rather than the vanilla. These cakes were divine. I cant wait to try them with vanilla as well. The cake is lovely and light in texture but sturdy enough to form the basis of an interesting cupcake.



Because the marshmallow was quite sweet, I decided to ice the tops with whipped cream which is lovely and light but not too sweet. I slightly coloured it pink to keep with the theme and added a dried rose to the top. I think these cakes are gorgeous!! I took them into work where they got rave reviews. They would be gorgeous for a tea party or for a little girls birthday party. You could buy pink marshmallows, but making your own is easy enough and you wouldn’t get the lovely light texture with bought marshmallows.



Rose Marshmallow

500g sugar
1 tbsp liquid glucose
400ml water
2 tbsp gelatine
2 egg whites
1 tsp rose water
red food colouring
2 tbsp dried rose petals

· Line 20x30cm slice tin with baking paper and then dust with a half and half mix of cornflour and icing sugar
· Combine sugar, glucose and 200ml of the water in a small pot, stir over low heat until sugar dissolved, bring to the boil and boil without stirring until the syrup is 121deg c
· Meanwhile, sprinkle gelatine over the other 200ml water and set aside for 10 minutes; then microwave fro 20 seconds and stir to dissolve the gelatine
· Beat egg whites until stiff; stir gelatine into 121c sugar syrup (be careful as it splutters) and then with beaters going, slowly pour syrup into egg whites in a slew stream.
· Add a drop of food colouring and the rose water and beat until very very thick
· Sprinkle half the rose petals over the tin, pour over the marshmallow and sprinkle the remaining rose petals on top.
· Leave to set for about 3 hours and then cut into pieces; dust with more equal parts icing sugar and cornflour

Rose Cupcakes

200g butter
1 ¾ c castor sugar
4 eggs
1 tbsp rose water
2 ¾ c flour
2 tsp b powder
1 c milk

· Cream butter and sugar; add eggs one at a time and then rose water
· Stir in half the flour and baking powder, then half the milk, then remaining ingredients
· Spoon into 24 cupcake cases and bake at 170c for 18-20 minutes

Assembly

· Once the cakes are cold, scoop out a little of the top with a teaspoon, and pop in a piece of marshmallow
· Ice with whipped cream, tinted slightly pink and top with a dried rose