Friday, January 14, 2011

When Life Gives You..... Marshmallow Cream, Make Truffles

Earlier this week, I made an attempt at making my own marshmallows, from scratch.  The plan was to make chocolate covered marshmallows. It was more of an experiment, since the recipe called for gelatin, and kosher gelatin (made from tapioca) isn't the same thing.  But unless I tried, I could never be for certain that it wouldn't work.
Everything looked like it was going well, I left it out over night, to dry up, as per the directions.  In the morning, I come back to see that it didn't harden at all.  However, the texture and taste was exactly that of marshmallow fluff.  Since there wasn't going to be chocolate covered marshmallows, I decided to make marshmallow chocolate truffles.  My kids are loving them, so I guess they were a success.

Marshmallows (failed recipe became marshmallow cream)
1/2 cup plus 1/3 cup room temperature water
2 tablespoons plus 1/2 teaspoon unflavored gelatin (I used the Leiber's made from tapioca)
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 large egg whites, at room temperature
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Cornstarch, sifted

Place a half cup water in a bowl and sprinkle with gelatin.  Allow to soften for 5 min.
In a medium pot, combine sugar, corn syrup, remaining water, and salt.  Using a candy thermometer, cook over medium heat until it reaches 240°F.

Sugar mixture reaches 240*F
Remove from heat and whisk in gelatin until combined. Cover the pot and leave on turned off beater to keep warm while preparing the egg mixture.
In a stand mixture, whip egg Whites on high until soft peaks form. Pour a thin, steady stream of sugar syrup over eggs while mixer is still running. (try to be carefully not to pour on side of bowl or on whip)  Mix till side of bowl is cool to touch (can take 5 minutes or more)  Beat in the vanilla.  The marshmallow should be thick and glossy and form medium-firm peaks.
Grease 9" x 13" and put parchment paper on the bottom. Pour marshmallow in to pan, and smooth with a spatula. . Lightly dust the top with cornstarch.  Allow to sit over night at room temperature.

The marshmallows looked perfect till this point
Sprinkle a piece of parchment with cornstarch, run a spatula around the edges of the marshmallow, and turn in over on top of the parchment. Peel the parchment off of the marshmallow if it comes loose from the pan. Use a long, sharp, thin-bladed knife to cut into about forty 1 1/2-inch squares.

The texture of the marshmallows the next day.
If you are successful in getting this far with kosher gelatin, please let me know what you did.  When I came back in the morning, the texture remained the same as the night before.  And so my next recipe was formed.

Chocolate Truffles
16 oz chocolate chips
1 recipe marshmallow cream from above or a 7 1/2 oz jar marshmallow fluff
icing sugar - sifted
cocoa - sifted

Melt chocolate chips over hot water (not boiling) on double boiler.  Remove from heat and stir in marshmallow cream.  When cools slightly, form into 3/4" - 1" balls.  Roll balls in icing sugar or cocoa/icing sugar mixture.  Place in fridge for an hour to firm.


The delicious end result.

Thanks for stopping by,

Chanie

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