FOURTH AVE DIY

We’ve been busy working on several other projects this year (our wedding, I got a new job & we helped make a film in the 48 Hour Film Contest to name a few) so the house has been a little un-renovated of late. This is to change soon, but in the meantime I give you MARSHMALLOWY GOODNESS.  This is one of my favourite sweet treats & I can assure you: the marshmallow created from this recipe tastes fantastic.

The original marshmallow recipe was sourced from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.  We hold his work in high esteem and love his show (about the only cooking-related show I will watch) but we beg to differ on the ordering of his instructions.

What you’ll need

• 1-2 tbsp icing sugar
• 1-2 tbsp cornflour
• A little vegetable oil for oiling the tin and knife
• 1 small, raw, peeled beetroot
• 25g gelatine powder (about 2 sachets, but check the packet – NB: doesn’t come in sachets in NZ)
• 500g granulated sugar
• 2 egg whites

How you’ll prepare it – according to Mr. Fearnley-Whittingstall

1. Sift the icing sugar and cornflour together into a small bowl.
2. Rub a shallow cake tin of about 20×20cm with a few drops of vegetable oil and shake a little of the icing sugar mixture around the tin to coat the base and sides.
3. Grate the beetroot into a small bowl and pour over 125ml of nearly boiling water and leave to infuse for 30 seconds. Strain the pink, nearly boiling water into a bowl and sprinkle the gelatine on top. Stir until all of the gelatine has dissolved.
4. Put the sugar into a medium-sized saucepan with 250ml of water. Warm over a low heat, stirring until all of the sugar has dissolved, then place a sugar thermometer in the pan and raise the heat, allowing the mixture to boil fiercely without stirring until the thermometer reads 122°C. Remove from the heat and pour the beetroot/gelatine mixture into the hot sugar syrup, stirring until everything is well blended.
5. Pour the egg whites into the large bowl of a mixer and beat until stiff. With the mixer going at a low speed, slowly pour in the sugar mixture in a steady, gentle trickle. After you’ve added all of the syrup, leave the machine to carry on beating until the mixture turns really thick and bulky but is still pourable – when you lift up the beater, it should leave a ribbon trail of the mixture on the surface which takes a few seconds to sink back down into the mix.
6. Pour the marshmallow into the prepared tin. Leave to set in a cool place (do not refrigerate) for an hour or two.
7. Dust a chopping board with the rest of the cornflour and icing sugar mixture. Coat a knife with a little oil. Carefully ease the marshmallow out of the tin onto the board, helping it out where necessary with the knife. Make sure all of the surfaces of the marshmallow are entirely dusted with the icing sugar mixture. Cut the marshmallows into squares, oiling and dusting the knife as needed. Store in an airtight tin lined with baking parchment.

How you’ll prepare it – in reality as based on our experience on Sunday afternoon

Generally the recipe was easy enough to follow & didn’t miss out any steps.  The description of what the mixture should look like when it is ready to set is bang on.

What it could have done was reorder the steps better based on actual heating, cooling & reactions of different ingredients to each other: steps 3 & 4 are reordered below because the sugar took longer to heat than the gelatine took to set.  The hard lesson here was that you can’t re-melt gelatine so we had to forego the beetroot & therefore the colour. I’d also recommend preparing anything you can in advance, e.g. don’t wait until step 5 to put your egg whites in the bowl.  Have this done already.

Implement-wise, we ended up using greased, powdered scissors to cut the marshmallows & cut them on the bench top rather than using a cutting board. Next time we’d use a large saucepan (rather than medium) because when we added the gelatine mix to the boiling sugar it all bubbled up and spilt – not easy to clean up!

1. Prepare your ingredients: sift the icing sugar and cornflour together into a small bowl; separate your egg whites & put them in your mixing bowl; weigh out the gelatine & grate your beetroot.
2. Rub a shallow cake tin of about 20×20cm with a few drops of vegetable oil and shake a little of the icing sugar mixture around the tin to coat the base and sides.
3. Put the sugar into a large-sized saucepan with 250ml of water. Warm over a low heat, stirring until all of the sugar has dissolved, then place a sugar thermometer in the pan and raise the heat, allowing the mixture to boil fiercely without stirring until the thermometer reads 122°C. Remove from the heat and pour the beetroot/gelatine mixture into the hot sugar syrup, stirring until everything is well blended.
4. Pour 125ml of nearly boiling water over the grated beetroot and leave to infuse for 30 seconds. Strain the pink, nearly boiling water into a bowl and sprinkle the gelatine on top. Stir until all of the gelatine has dissolved – be aware that if it hardens you can’t melt it again (I can’t emphasise this enough – we only had one beetroot so we then had to make white ‘mallows instead).
5. Almost at the same time as step 4, pour the egg whites into the large bowl of a mixer and beat until stiff. With the mixer going at a low speed, slowly pour in the sugar mixture in a steady, gentle trickle. After you’ve added all of the syrup, leave the machine to carry on beating until the mixture turns really thick and bulky but is still pourable – when you lift up the beater, it should leave a ribbon trail of the mixture on the surface which takes a few seconds to sink back down into the mix.
6. Pour the marshmallow into the prepared tin. Leave to set in a cool place (do not refrigerate) for an hour or two.
7. Dust a chopping board (or your kitchen bench if you’re going to use scissors) with the rest of the cornflour and icing sugar mixture. Coat a knife/your scissors with a little oil. Carefully ease the marshmallow out of the tin onto the board/bench, helping it out where necessary with the knife. Make sure all of the surfaces of the marshmallow are entirely dusted with the icing sugar mixture. Cut the marshmallows into squares, oiling and dusting the knife/scissors as needed. Store in an airtight tin lined with baking parchment.

NOM NOM NOM!

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