What great way to impress your family and friends with easy to make homemade marshmallows. After eating these you will never look at a store bought marshmallow the same!
Most people would never think of making their own marshmallows.
That is the spirit of this website, making things that others don't.
One of my favorite things to make is homemade marshmallows. The recipe I always use is Alton Brown's.
? What Tools You Need
For this recipe, you need a candy thermometer and a stand mixer.
? Ingredients
Here are the basic ingredients you will need to make marshmallows.
- Unflavored gelatin
- Sugar
- Light corn syrup
- Kosher salt
- Extract
- Powdered sugar and/or Cornstarch
- Food coloring (optional)
Most of us have those ingredients in our homes now, minus the unflavored gelatin and maybe the light corn syrup. Unflavored gelatin can be found in most stores by the flavored gelatin or Jell-O. Corn syrup will be near the sugar, honey, or maple syrup.
For the extract you can use whatever you have. Vanilla extract is the standard and what Alton uses but you can flavor with whatever extract you want. You can use oils as well, just don't overdo as they are a lot stronger than extracts.
The marshmallows you saw at the top of this post were made with Cocoa Metro Chocolate + Vanilla Extract. They were colored green for St. Patrick's Day.
The powered sugar and/or corn starch is used to dust on top of the marshmallows when cutting them. Alton calls for a combination of both but if you only have one you can make do. We once had neither and used some arrowroot powder, which is flavorless and still gluten free.
? Recipe Notes
Below you find a list of my notes from making Alton's recipe. You'll want to read this over before making the recipe, it will help you.
- When cooking the sugar syrup carefully monitor the temperature. It didn't take me as long as it took him to get to 240 degrees.
- Let your mixer run without stopping for 15 minutes. This is why you really need a stand mixer. Your arm would break off if you just use a hand mixer.
- I did this recipe with a couple 4 year olds. They enjoying watching the gelatin bloom as well as watching the mixer turn a liquid into a bright shiny white candy. Get the kids involved, just keep the handling of the hot syrup to the adults.
- Pan size does not really matter that much as long as you give them long enough to cool.
- Allow the marshmallows to rest for about 5 hours. They were pretty firm, with only a minor amount of sticking.
Once you have had these homemade marshmallows you will never want to go back. They have a gooey, creamy center.
Everyone who sampled them raved about them and couldn't help but go back for more!
Other Alton Brown Recipes to Try
Homemade Marshmallows
Equipment
- Stand mixer
- Candy/fry thermometer
Ingredients
- 3 packages unflavored gelatin
- 1 cup cold water
- 1 ½ cups pure cane sugar
- 1 cup light corn syrup
- ¼ tsp kosher salt
- 1 tsp extract of your choice like vanilla
- ¼ cup powdered sugar
- ¼ cup corn starch
- non stick cooking spray
Instructions
- Open the packets of the gelatin and pour into your stand mixer bowl.
- Add ½ cup of cold water
- Add the other ½ cup of cold water to a tall sided sauce pan along with the sugar, corn syrup, and kosher salt. Make sure you use a pot you have a lid for.
- Put the pot over medium high heat and slap on the lid. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes.
- Remove the lid and carefully add your candy thermometer. The mixture will be very hot, so take your time and practice safety.
- Cook until the temperature hits 240 degrees. This should take between 6-8 minutes. Immediately remove the pan from the heat, being careful not to splash the mixture.
- Turn your mixer onto it's lowest setting to mix together the gelatin and water. Slowly add the sugar mixture from the pot into the mixer bowl while it's running.
- Once you have add all the syrup, give it a few seconds, then turn the mixer up to high speed.
- Keep at high speed for 12 to 15 minutes until the mixture is thick and the bowl feels lukewarm, not hot.
- While the mixer is working, spray a baking pan with non stick spray. I recommend something in the 13x9 size. Mix the powdered sugar and corn starch in a bowl and dust over top the pan. Save some for the marshmallows themselves.
- Add in your extract in the last minute.
- As fast as you can pour the mixture from the stand mixer into the pan. You can use a spatula sprayed with oil to help get as much out as you can.
- Smooth it out the best you and dust with the powdered sugar/corn starch.
- Allow 4-5 hours for marshmallows to cool and firm up.
- Dust with more sugar/corn starch and slice into pieces.
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