I’ve been wanting to try my hand at marshmallow making for the longest time, and finally found just the inspiration I needed when planning a baby shower recently. In keeping with tradition, I made pink strawberry marshmallows because It’s a Girl!
These pastel-coloured little pillows of sweetness topped with a dusting of confectioner’s sugar added just the right touch to the buffet table, and utterly charmed my guests and Momma-to-be.
More than once I heard, “You can make those?”, recalling for me my own revelation that marshmallows don’t just come from the store in a plastic bag, but can be made right in your own kitchen.
The whole process was fun from start to finish. Watching the mixture of gelatin, sugar and strawberry transform from a liquid state to billowing clouds of soft pink was fascinating (I’m easily entertained), and proved that the other major ingredient in marshmallows is air. It did take a little longer than I expected for the marshmallows to cure (dry), which tends to happen with fruit-flavoured mallows, so I’m glad I made them a couple of days ahead of time.
For my recipe, I turned to the book Marshmallow Madness! by Shauna Sever. Yes, an entire cookbook devoted to marshmallowing. And it has a puffy cover — beyond cute! You can find the link to the recipe I used here; the only change I made was to omit the freeze-dried strawberries.
Let’s face it, there’s nothing nutritionally virtuous about marshmallows, but I think we can allow ourselves an unapologetic treat from time to time. At least I know that these strawberry marshmallows were naturally coloured, flavoured and scented with real strawberry puree, made by moi. Combined with their dreamily soft texture, these were — dare I say it — the perfect confection for a baby shower.
