Snow Day Project: Homemade Marshmallows

Sunday morning it started snowing and it just didn't stop. Because the ground wasn't frozen here in town the roads immediately turned into icy toboggan runs. Church closed down, my office Christmas party was canceled, and we cozied up for the day. I love snow days!

I mentioned earlier that I was intrigued with homemade marshmallows. I bought a candy thermometer and the supplies the other day and a snow day seemed like the perfect time to try out my untested candy-making abilities. I'm leary of handling molten sugar so I was glad that Nate was home to play mad kitchen scientist with me (and to play nurse if I burned myself handling the aforementioned molten sugar).

There are lots of recipes on-line for making marshmallows so I read a few that were similar and settled on this one and this one (great pictures and I love the whole concept of a website dedicated to cooking for engineers :). The marshmallows were surprisingly easy to make. No one was burned in the making of this project. It was just very, very messy. I made one batch with vanilla flavoring. They're definitely tastier and softer than your average grocery-store 'mallow, but I don't think they're quite as good as the Trader Joe Vanilla Marshmallows that I crave.

After I cut up the marshmallows this morning, the kitchen was a big mess with powdered sugar everywhere. So I decided to take advantage of the mess and make another batch--this time I used peppermint flavoring and some red food coloring. I am thinking that 1 tablespoon of peppermint was a little much...I guess most people will just use a 'mallow or two on their hot chocolate...not eat three in a row like I did.....so the peppermint probably won't be so overwhelming.

Here's a picture of my not-so-healthy but oh-so-yummy breakfast this morning: an orange, a piece of blueberry lemon coffeecake and Ovaltine with fresh vanilla marshmallows. Yummm! Topped only by the wonderful news that school is cancelled Monday and Tuesday too! Maybe I'll still be able to finish a few Christmas projects in time to mail them east!

Happy Snow Days!