Tuesday, April 15, 2008

TWD - the marshmallow catastrophe



This week’s TWD recipe was marshmallow. Even though I have made marshmallow before (in fact quite recently I made rose marshmallow to fill my rose cupcakes for the marshmallow cupcake hero), Dorie’s recipe had caught my eye in the past as in the photo there was chocolate marshmallow which sounded pretty jolly good. Except, this marshmallow was nothing like I had hoped. Actually, this may be the first Dorie recipe that I have tried which I have not liked.

Ok, it was mostly my fault – I made the recipe and then realised that I hadn’t put glucose syrup in the sugar syrup!! Yes, it was a big day in the kitchen, but no excuses for not reading the recipe properly! The other issue was with my gelatine. The recipe said 2 x ¼ ounce packets of gelatine. We don’t have imperial in NZ and my gelatine was in a bag, not sachets. I kind of figured that there is 25 –30g in an ounce, therefore ¼ of an ounce is about 7g. But instead of weighing it as I should have, I thought that would be about 1 tbsp, so went with that.

The meringue part actually came together quite well, but when I added the chocolate, the whole thing went runny (as I see happened to lots of other TWD bloggers). In my rose marshmallow recipe, you keep beating and beating the mixture until it is so thick it barely falls off the beater. I beat and beat my chocolate marshmallow (even though Dorie didn’t say to do that), but it didn’t thicken. Then I wondered if I hadn’t added enough gelatine, so I added about another teaspoon. In the end I just tipped the mixture into my tin and crossed my fingers.

The result is a fairly flat marshmallow that is a bit too set (my rose stuff was like eating clouds!). Probably too much gelatine – or does adding the melted chocolate change the texture too much? I don’t think that not putting the glucose in will have made a huge difference?? But I will be sticking to my rose recipe for marshmallow from now on. Then, to add insult to injury, my photos of the marshmallow are terrible – the one above is about the only half decent one!!! It is getting very autumny here now and we have had a couple of dark, stormy days – the lighting in the 1970s house is not great as I’ve said before – think I will need to get a spot light in for winter!!

My husband thought the chocolate taste was a bit odd - but I think it was probably the texture being a bit firm that was odd. I sent the marshmallow down to my 6 year old nephew and 4 year old niece in Christchurch - hopefully their palates aren't refined enough yet to know that this is less than great marshmallow!!

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry that your marshmallows didn't turn out how you had hoped. This was a tough one and I had my fingers crossed the entire time because I didn't realize the extra tablespoon of sugar was missing from the recipe and that it needed to go into the egg whites. I was afraid mine wouldn't set up.

CB said...

Ruh oh! catastrophe in the title can't be good. I felt the same way about this recipe - not my favorite. Ah well... live, learn and bake right?
Clara @ I♥food4thought

Anonymous said...

What a shame they didn't work out - Never mind, here's to next week! Your rose marshmallows on a previous post look fantastic though! Hx

Dolores said...

I'm also sorry this one didn't work out for you. Your rose marshmallows sound heavenly!

steph- whisk/spoon said...

oh no! trust me, i have my fair share of kitchen catastrophies as well!

i also always scratch my head when recipes say things like 'one packet'of gelatine or yeast. packets here are different than in the US and you just have to guess.

Anonymous said...

I sent my marshmallows off, too. Bring on the carrot cake!

Cakelaw said...

Hey, they look good anyway. And you know that you can make good marshmallow using your own recipe.

Peabody said...

Sorry they were not all you had hoped for!

Mary said...

bummer about your mallows, although you can't tell from the pic....rose marshmallows sound delicious! I have another standard recipe I'll be using too, but it was fun to try Dorie's this once.

Anonymous said...

Yum...I think they look yummy! I am sorry you had to deal with all that though. One of my dear friends just moved here from Australia (even though I know it's not the same as NZ!) and she has such a hard time making the goodies she made back home...she says our sweetened condensed milk has a completely different texture, and other things are different too :(

Marie Rayner said...

awww they don't look that bad to me. I think they are rather tasty looking, but then again, I am partial to chocolate!

Sihan said...

i've had my fair share of fumbles in the kitchen as well with this one. thank goodness it turned out well.

at the very least, your rose marshmallows were good. sounds lyke heaven to me..

Sihan said...

i've had my fair share of fumbles in the kitchen as well with this one. thank goodness it turned out well.

at the very least, your rose marshmallows were good. sounds lyke heaven to me..

CRS said...

I'm sorry this didn't work out for you!

Amy said...

Sorry yours didn't turn out. I am having second thoughts about making the chocolate...

Tammy said...

Actually, I probably have made them sound worse than what they were!! My sister and my nephew and niece thought they were great and tasted delicious!

Nikki57 said...

Haha I definitely beat a little longer because I assumed they should be the consistency of the normal marshmallows I made. oops At least you had fun trying

Anonymous said...

Sorry they didn't turn out as you expected. Live and learn I guess...

Bumblebutton said...

They looked great! And now you have a go-to-with-out-fail recipe! So all is not lost!

Anonymous said...

I gotta give you credit for trying though! There's always next week, right?

Anonymous said...

Hmm, all of the 'playing around' flavors sound good, but so many people had problems with them that I'm hesitant to give them a try.

Morven said...

Ah well - you win some you lose some. At least you have a nice reliable marshmallow recipe that DOES work for you.

Natalie said...

Aw, sorry it didn't work out for you! They look good anyway! (I forgot, but I was sweating the package of gelatin too. They didn't have measurements for the individual packages on the box, so I winged it.)

Mari said...

You've successfully made marshmallows before, and you'll do it again! Don't be discouraged!

Shari@Whisk: a food blog said...

It seems the chocolate marshmallows were tricky for lots of people!

LyB said...

I ended up making cookies with mine! I'll keep using my usual egg-less recipe from now on!