Building Blocks: Marshmallows

The Basics…

When you’re a kid you’re given the foundation to make a life for yourself. These include, but are not limited to: basic math, vocabulary, reading skills. Everything else will follow once you have these. When it comes to basics, I’m a little lacking. Sure I’m a very capable reader and writer, but give me math and you’re giving me death.

I know how to balance my checkbook, which in the big picture is a pretty good accomplishment since I know some people who don’t. But I am for sure one of those kids that needs a calculator at their fingertips to get things done. I even double-check my basic addition and subtraction, because lets face it, nothing is worse than second guessing your math skills. If I had grown up before hand held calculators were the norm, I know I would have been in some serious trouble. Not to mention, I don’t think that the abacus is as easy at it sounds, there has to be a trick question in there somewhere.

The first failure I had with math (and I have had many since) was in 3^rd grade. We were studying our multiplication tables as most 3^rd graders do. I was doing really well with the 1’s, 2’s, and 3’s. I worked on flashcards at home in my free time. I practiced and tried to memorize, but then the 4’s came around. For some reason the 4’s were the most difficult of them all. Everyone had moved on to 6’s and I was still stuck on 4’s. For my 3^rd grade mind it was unbelievably difficult and incredibly embarrassing (at 8 years old, most things are embarrassing). Somehow I got through to 5’s and 6’s, only to get stuck on 8’s (of course 4 is their root). So to say I excelled in basic math would be a flat out lie.

I did end up getting through it and passing 3^rd grade math, although I still struggle with my 4’s and 8’s when multiplying in my head. Then came calculus in high school. I tried really hard to understand it and do well in it. Not to mention I loved the bowling game I had on my TI-83 calculator, but calculus was not for me. Once again, not the highlight of my academic career, but I ended up passing.

In the same vein, I’m really good at algebra concepts. Give me back yard and I WANT to calculate its area. Show me a circle and I can’t help but figure out its circumference. Once again, further proof that I have a beyond nerdy side (luckily I’m well adjusted). Blame my background in landscape, but the reality is, for some reason, I just “get” it better than any other mathematical concept.

My set of basic skills is a little skewed.

My set of basic skills in the kitchen is a little skewed as well. I take the time to make these elaborate desserts and meals, but at the end of the day I still don’t know how to cook rice. (I know – such a bummer, it always burns.) However, I have mastered a basic skill that looks and seems difficult, but is in fact REALLY easy. So easy I’ve made them four times since I first attempted them.

Marshmallows may seem a little daunting. When you’re used to the preconceived notion of Jet Puffed or Campfire marshmallows – toss that idea out the window. I’m not going to lie, there’s something incredibly pleasurable about the outer staleness of a store bought marshmallow and the stringy, sticky inside that clings to the roof of your mouth and the grittiness of the sugar that sticks to your teeth.

According to Wikipedia, here’s the basic math on marshmallows:

“According to the National Confectioners Association, Americans spend more than $125 million annually for upwards of 90 million pounds of marshmallow, a mass equivalent to 1,286 gray whales.”

Now that’s a lot of S’mores. I got the idea to make my own marshmallows when I wanted to make a S’more Tart for my friend Nicole’s belated birthday present. If I was going to make her a special birthday treat, it was not going to be made with store bought marshmallows. That would just be too easy.

So I hit the books, or more accurately the World Wide Web and found a recipe.

Since developing my S’mores tart I’ve made four batches of these puppies. I’ve flavored them, I’ve unflavored them, I’ve dipped them in chocolate and no matter which way you look at them, they happen to be DELICIOUS! (Next I’m going to dye them!)

They’re still marshmallows, so they’re messy and sticky, BUT once you get the hang of them, they’re easy and rewarding. So we’re going to start with basic marshmallows and then in the next post we’ll hit up some S’mores pie.

Once you’ve got the foundation of marshmallows down, you’ll be able to conquer anything in the kitchen!

Homemade Marshmallows

Ingredients:

1 cup – Cold water

3 envelopes + ½ tsp – Unflavored gelatin

2 cups – Sugar

2/3 cup – Light corn syrup

¼ tsp – Salt

2 tsp – Wonder Flavor or Vanilla Extract or any sort of flavoring

About 1 cup – Powdered Sugar (give or take)

Directions:

Line a 13”x9”x2” rectangular, metal pan with tin foil. Coat the tin foil with non-stick cooking spray.

Connect the whisk attachment to your mixer. In the bowl of your mixer pour ½ cup of cold water. Sprinkle the gelatin over the water and let it stand in the mixer until all the water is absorbed.

In a heavy, medium sized saucepan, combine the sugar, corn syrup, salt, and remaining ½ cup of cold water. Constantly stir the sugar mixture over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. (It’s ready when the mixture starts to simmer.)

Attach a candy thermometer to the side of the saucepan. Make sure the tip of the thermometer doesn’t touch the bottom of the pan.

Increase the heat over the sugar mixture, bringing it to a boil. Do not stir the sugar once you’ve increased the heat. Keep an eye on the thermometer until the sugar mixture reaches the “soft ball” stage/240°F. (It takes about 8 minutes.)

Once it reaches the softball stage, turn your mixer on at low speed. Take the sugar mixture off the heat and slowly pour the hot syrup into the gelatin mixture in a thin stream down the side of the bowl, while the mixer is running. (When the gelatin mixes with the hot syrup it smells kind of funny, but that’s normal.)

Gradually increase the mixer’s speed to high (I make 6 the top number on the Kitchen Aid). Beat the mixture until it’s thick and stiff, about 8 minutes after all the syrup has been added to the gelatin. The marshmallow should be pulling away from the sides of the bowl. Add the flavoring to the marshmallow mixture and beat to blend.

Carefully scrape the marshmallow into the prepared pan. Do it quickly, because the longer you wait the stringier and stickier the fluff gets. Smooth the top with a slightly wet spatula (run the spatula under warm water and dab it dry with a towel). Let the marshmallows stand uncovered until firm (at least four hours). I kept mine out for the night and they were fine. I wouldn’t keep them uncovered for a day, but 8 hours seemed fine.

To cut the marshmallows:

Sift powdered sugar onto a clean work surface (I covered my work surface with parchment paper and then sifted onto it since it is a little messy when it sticks to counter tops). The powdered sugar helps keep the marshmallows from sticking to everything. Dump the marshmallows onto the surface and peel off the foil. Sift powdered sugar onto the top of the marshmallows. Using a damp knife (same principal as the wet spatula), coat the knife with powdered sugar. (This helps with the cutting so it’s not a super sticky mess.) Cut the marshmallows into squares (as big or as small as you’d like). Once cut, make sure to coat the sides that are still sticky with a little powdered sugar. I like to bang them together to get the excess powdered sugar off of them. Make sure to store them in an airtight container/Tupperware of some sort.

To cover in chocolate:

Using a double boiler, melt about 2 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips. You’re going to have to scoop the chocolate onto the marshmallows with the help of a rubber spatula or spoon. Set the chocolate covered marshmallows on top of parchment paper until the chocolate sets. After the chocolate has set store them in an airtight container. If it’s hot, store them in the fridge so the chocolate doesn’t melt.

(My sister/kitchen assistant, Sissy Sifter (as we like to call her  - all her swashbuckling names sounds too porn star-y), had the brilliant idea to cover the marshmallows in chocolate for our Mom's birthday.  This part was her entirely her trial. It was her work that made them happen. Plus she was a fantastic helper and a great extra set of hands. She can wield a knife with the best of them!)

Wrap up and Substitutions:

At first I thought marshmallows were going to be scary and a level 10 on the trickiness scale. I was also nervous they would taste really processed and "fake", but this recipe is light, airy, and fantastically sweet. I don’t think I will ever purchase a store bought marshmallow again. I made a batch where I stuck them in foil lined heart molds and they were awesome! I accidentally forgot to add the flavoring in one batch, and while they weren’t as sweet, they were still tasty!

There are a couple things I’ve learned with the different trials and hopefully they help make yours a success:

- Go easy on the cooking spray when you are spraying the foil. If there’s too much spray they get a little greasy and too powdered sugary.

- It was hard to figure out how much gelatin to use. I used Knox's Unflavored Gelatin (and I have an entire box of little individual envelopes). Each Gelatin envelope is 1 TBSP/1 ounce, so I used three entire envelopes and a 1/2 teaspoon of the fourth. I went through a lot of experimentation trying to figure that out and it's the ratio that works best.

- Get wild with the flavors! Peppermint marshmallows sound fantastic (especially for the holidays)!

- You will waste a little powdered sugar. It’s hard knowing when to say when with it because you want to make sure the marshmallows are coated so they’re not super sticky, but you don’t want them caked in sugar where your mouth turns white from the excess. So really try to tap them together or against your cutting surface to get the extra off before you store them.

- These marshmallows crisp up awesomely under an open flame. I was worried as to how they were going to hold up when encountering fire, but they are fantastic!

The Cheesecake Stands Alone

My mom took piano lessons for the greater part of her childhood.  I don’t quite remember how or exactly when our family managed to get a piano at our house, but we did.  I assume it was so my mom could play and my dad could jam with her on the drums.  I can’t be sure, but I think in mine and in my sister’s minds we were setting up to be the family version of Miami Sound Machine and we were going to put on awesome shows with hits like Dr. Beat and Conga. 

We had always had a little keyboard from the 80’s that played the tinny, programmed melodies, that kind of sounded like music, but also like the background noise in an intense game of Tetris.  Our new piano was electric and you could change the setting and it played organ sounds or flute like sounds, but it was full size and had a body.  There was a thud beneath the keys when you slammed on them that could not be recreated with the keyboard.  It was the real deal.  That little, crappy Casio was awesome for Miami Sound Machine recreations, this new and improved real piano was possibly going to legitimize our singing adventures and rocket us into stardom.  Well, even that’s a little far fetched for my imagination, but it would have been great if it had happened that way.

Once we got the piano, my mom started tinkering at it regularly and playing what I like to call “Saturday Morning Music”, which is Beatles, Elton John, Billy Joel, etc (basically Singers and Songwriters of the 70’s).  Once there was a piano in the house, a sing a long atmosphere developed with my mom running to play a song to accurately finish a story, or hit a punch line, or provide the soundtrack for that specific moment in time.  She was excited about her new toy!  I like being able to do things with my mom and in figuring the piano out I kind of taught myself how to read music and how to follow the notes. 

I was not a baby Mozart; in no way, shape, or form was I even close to being a prodigy.  It was more fine tuned memorization and fudging.  I could always play the top part of the music, but trying to get my right and left hands to play in sync and together never really worked out well.  I’m not sure if it was too much to concentrate on or if my left hand was just stubborn because my right hand always got the attention or what, but my skill level never really progressed. Don’t even ask about the pedals, there was no way I was ever throwing a foot into the mix with two uncoordinated hands. 

That’s when my mom decided we should have real lessons. 

Real lessons were exciting at first, but then proved to be a little too mundane.  Our teacher was very nice and came to our house and was young and cool, but lessons meant a set schedule, a set time, set things to practice, and in many ways a structured challenge.  We stuck with it for a while, but it lacked the loose environment that we had before.  The tunes we were learning (if you could even call them that) were boring, children’s rhymes and had a sing a long level of zero.  Not to mention, the odds were not in favor of my child-sized hands and once the music started getting complicated my fingers couldn’t stretch to hit the right keys. 

Needless to say piano lessons may have been doomed from the start in our household.  However, it was always a fun part of our evening family ritual and I think a sort of decompression outlet for my mom.  And in spite of my piano struggles I still carry some things with me: I still know how to play the Russian Dance from the Nutcracker Ballet on the piano, I learned all the words to ‘As Time Goes By’ from Casablanca, and I will never forget the soundtrack my mom played for me when I was dating my first real boyfriend – 'Daniel', by Elton John.  (Who, strangely enough, did end up ‘traveling tonight on a plane’, but that was long after we had broken up.)

You may be asking yourself what this ridiculous piano story has to do with cheesecake and the reality is very little to absolutely nothing.  As you all know from my previous post I am not a cheesecake fan.  But in the same way I taught myself the piano, I feel with this second attempt at cheesecakes I am now comfortable with cheesecake.  With a little methodical thinking, anything can happen.  (Except for the recreation of Miami Sound Machine’s greatest hits; I think that only got worse the more times we tried to make it right.)  So when asked for another cheesecake I gladly accepted the challenge and made something fantastic, beautiful, complex, and edible.

German Chocolate Cheesecake

Crust: (adapted from Hershey's Kitchens)

1 cup – ground Chocolate Teddy Grahams crumbs

2 TBSP – sugar

1/3 cup – unsalted butter, melted

¼ cup – coconut flakes

¼ cup – pecan chips

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Grease, with cooking spray, a 9” spring form pan.  In a bowl, stir to combine, the graham cracker crumbs and sugar.  Next add the butter, coconut, and pecans to the crumb mixture and stir until combined.  Press into the bottom of the spring form pan and using a cold, metal measuring cup, push the crumb mixture up the sides of the spring form pan about 1”.  Place the crust in the oven and bake for 5 minutes until it is pretty set.

Filling: (adapted from Bon Appetit, October 2006) 

4 – 8 oz packages of cream cheese, softened

1 cup – sugar

¼ cup – unsweetened cocoa powder 

1 TBSP – vanilla extract

4 – eggs

8 oz – semisweet chocolate, melted and cooled

Directions:

Keep the oven temperature at 350 degrees.  Melt your chocolate in a double boiler and set aside to cool.  In the bowl of your mixer blend the cream cheese, cocoa, and sugar together until combined.  Add the eggs, one at a time, making sure that each egg is incorporated into the batter before adding the next egg.  Mix in the vanilla.  Add the lukewarm chocolate and mix until combined.  Pour the batter over the crust and bake until the edges are set and the center is still a little wobbly.  About 1 hour.  Allow cheesecake to cool before adding the topping.

Custard Topping: (adapted from David Lebovitz)

½ cup – heavy whipping cream

½ cup – sugar

3 TBSP – unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

2 – egg yolks

¼ tsp – salt

½ cup – pecans, toasted and finely chopped

¾ cup – coconut, toasted

Directions:

To toast the coconut and pecans: Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Line a cookie sheet with foil.  Put the pecans on one side of the cookie sheet and the coconut on the other.  Place in the oven for about ten minutes.  The coconut and pecans will start to brown a little.

For the topping:  In a medium saucepan, combine the heavy cream, sugar, and egg yolks.  In a medium bowl combine the butter, salt, coconut, and pecans. 

Heat the cream mixture over medium/low heat stirring constantly.  The mixture will start to cook and thicken.  Once the mixture coats the spoon (or the thermometer reaches 170 degrees), turn the heat off and pour the hot custard over the pecan, coconut, and butter mixture.  Stir the custard until the butter has completely melted and the custard is smooth.  Cool the custard completely before pouring over the top of the cheesecake.

Cheesecake Assembly:

Once the cheesecake and custard topping are both cool, pour the custard topping over the cheesecake.  Take a small handful of chocolate chips and seal them in a Ziploc baggie.  Microwave them for 20 seconds squeeze the bag to help move the melted chocolate.  Continue to microwave in 20 second increments until the chocolate in the plastic baggie is completely melted.  Snip the corner off the plastic baggie and pipe the warm chocolate in an intersecting line pattern over the top of the cheesecake to add a little pizzazz.  Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Wrap up and substitutions:

I tried to keep my cheesecake from falling once it cooled.   Since this was a huge problem last time I made a cheesecake dessert.  I looked up several websites and advice on the matter and could not get a clear answer on what to do, but I tried one approach anyway.  I turned the oven off once the cheesecake was done and let the oven cool down slowly, with the cake in it, with the oven door open.  The cheesecake still fell and the door was rather hazardous in our teeny kitchen.  This is something I will figure out, but it may take me some time.

I love coconut, but it causes me much pain to say that in my adult years I have developed a severe allergy to it.  As much as I wanted to try this cheesecake I held back.  However, the rich chocolate, coconut, pecan smell you get from this cake is to die for.  It was seriously torture not being able to try it, but on smell alone this cake was a tremendous success.  I did have many loyal taste testers who attested to its deliciousness. 

I can see my cheesecake adventures going the way of my piano lessons.  The ride was good while it lasted, I was able to create some delicious gems, but for now my attention span on cheesecakes is over and we’re on to the next big project.

Close Up - Carrot Cake

In fourth grade, I failed my eye exam.  I didn’t just fail, but I failed MISERABLY.  I had known for some time that this was going to happen, but I couldn’t admit it to myself.  The day of the eye exam I hoped that I would be able to fudge my way through it, kind of how I had fudged my way through my multiplication tables in 3rd grade (I’m still terrible at my 8’s).  I don’t remember much of the exam, but the long walk back from the nurse’s office, back to the classroom, that ended with me in tears, before I walked back through the door remains with me.

It’s funny the things you remember in a semi-traumatic moment.  (It's all relative.  It was just the aches and pains of growing up, but at the time seemed like the most dire moment of my 9 years on Earth.)  I for some reason remember what I was wearing that fateful day.  I wore a tie dyed t-shirt, knotted on the side and some black lyrca shorts.  I had on a red woven headband that we had gotten on a family trip to Guatemala.  What I was wearing is really of no importance, but I was positive the minute I got the note to go to the optometrist that I was going to be this lame, four eyed girl in that awkward phase in life.  Boys were never going to like me and I was going to be this nerdy preteen that loved Ace of Base.  I loved Ace of Base, I kind of still do.  And even before the glasses I was still nerdy, but I thought it was debatable.

Devastated and dramatic, I took my slip home to my parents and within a week my dad took me to the optometrist.  I don’t know if my pops could tell that I was apprehensive or nervous, but he made me feel better and it wasn’t the worst thing in life.  I resigned myself to bad eyesight, but if I was going to have glasses they were going to be cute/cute for a young girl in the early 90’s. It took me forever.  Knowing that I would have to wear them all the time and be seen in them put a lot of pressure on me.  So I picked a pair of frames that had little flowers on the side (probably my first error in the glasses category, but I kind of liked them).  Of course, I also picked one of those lanyards to hold my glasses around my neck (that was definitely my second error).  No one really wore cool glasses at that time, and I wish I could say I was ahead of my time, but I was really no exception.

While we were at the eye doctor, another woman was there picking out new glasses as well.  I’m not sure if she felt sorry for me (because I was so young and had to wear glasses) or actually thought I had some spunk, but she approached my dad about testing me for commercials because she worked for an advertising agency.  Maybe my life wasn’t doomed after all!

So my mom set it up and I went and tested for this commercial.  (Interestingly enough it was for some sort of Betty Crocker product or kitchen related brand.)  I wore my new glasses and they tested me for it without them.  I was terrible at memorizing my lines and all together was probably VERY bad at it.  In the end they went with someone else.  The main reason, the nice woman explained to me, was because there would be hand close ups  and I was/am a nail biter.  I don’t remember being too crushed by it, it’s not something I was sure I really thought was that cool, but that was the last and only time I stepped in front of a serious camera person. 

Last week, I ended my feud with the limelight and had professional photos taken by my friend John at Redtown Photography.  I wasn’t sure what to expect (he might not have been either).  I was nervous and giddy at the same time.  I was nervous the photos would be bad or just not exciting or that John would be bored and think this project was super lame.  I was giddy because it’s freaking cool.

And it was freaking cool.  John showed up with all this equipment and flashes and stands and fancy photography stuff.  I made him lunch, because that’s what a good hostess does (and that’s what I’m sure they do on the Food Network).  Once we got to work, I just let him play with it.   It was a fun and different experience and a learning process for both of us.  I could go on and on about how easy he was to work with and how fun it was to have someone in the kitchen and how fantastic everything turned out, but I won’t.  I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves!

Carrot Orange Cake Adapted from a Bon Apetit recipe found here.

Ingredients:
½ cup – butter
½ cup – vegetable oil
½ cup – unsweetened applesauce (the natural kind)
1 cup – brown sugar
1 cup – sugar
4 – eggs
1/3 cup – orange juice
1 TBSP – orange zest
2 cups – all purpose flour
2 tsp – baking soda
1 tsp – baking powder
1 tsp – cinnamon
1 tsp – ginger
½ tsp – nutmeg
½ tsp – salt
4 cups – peeled, grated carrots (just under a 3lb bag of baby carrots run through the grater on the food processor)
¼ cup – raisins, rehydrated in warm water for about 30 seconds

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Use baking spray to coat 2 – 9” round pans.  Cover the bottoms of the pans with a parchment circle and respray the pans.
In your mixer, beat the oil, butter, applesauce, and both sugars until combined.

Add the eggs, one at a time, beating the batter until combined after each addition.  Beat in the orange juice and zest. 

In a large, separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and salt.  Add the flour mixture, gradually, to the sugar mixture.

Beating until combined between additions.

Stir in the carrots and raisins to the batter by hand.

Bake the cakes for about 50 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients:

1 ½ - 8 oz packages of cream cheese
1 ½ - sticks of butter, room temp
5 cups – powdered sugar
2 TBSP – sour cream
1 tsp – Wonder Flavor (This amazing product by McNess, or you can just use vanilla extract)

Directions:
Beat the cream cheese and butter until combined.  Slowly add the sugar to the butter until combined.  Finally beat in the sour cream and the Wonder Flavor.

Wrap up and substitutions:
The cake was delicious.  The flavors were all there and it was incredibly moist.  I got a lot of compliments on the addition of the raisin and how much they were enjoyed.  I had originally planned to buy shredded carrots (it’s the Semi-Homemade in me), but the grocery store was out.  I was worried that shredding the carrots was going to be time consuming and frustrating.  As soon as I figured out the attachment on my food processor it was quick and simple.  I would also recommend soaking the bowls, food processor equipment as soon as you’re done with the carrots since they can dye white plastic orangey.  No complaints were filed in the making of this cake. 
When making it again, I will probably up the raisins to a ½ cup and I will also cut down on the orange juice.  It was nice to have a hint of orange, but it kind of drowned out the carrot flavor.  So I will either split the orange juice in half with carrot juice or with just water.  It’s important to keep the orange flavor in tact, but not make it the central point of the palate. 

All my photos were shot with me in my contact lenses.  Sadly, I still wear glasses, but I think they’re much hipper now.  Fourth grade may have seemed like my down fall, but I should have known that there would be something else to rear it’s ugly head down the line.  In 5th grade I received the beautiful news that I would need braces.  Glasses and braces at the same time – the absolute worst.  (It was pretty bad.)  Somehow I managed.  And the reality is, I don’t feel super scarred by it.  So they made me a little nerdy and socially inept for a small fraction of time, but it all worked out. I had my “swan” transformation when the braces were gone and I got contacts (probably getting boobs helped with that too).  Even though I ditched my head gear and my face lacked it’s four eye decoration, I was still the same person.  Nothing had really changed and I think it’s best that way.  Today I would even say SOMETIMES I look cute in my glasses, and without my nerdy side you would be reading a boring blog with unimaginative recipes.  Now if only I could get John to come take pictures every time I decide to bake something - life might be perfect.

I took all these awesome pictures of John. Obviously, I'm not a professional photographer, but he looks pretty cool.

Become his fan on the FACEBOOK!

Photo Shoot!

In less than 12 hours our kitchen darling will have a professional photo shoot! The crowd here at Pegleg Penny's Test Kitchen (which includes myself, the KitchenAid, my food processor, tart pan, and stack of cookbooks) is totally jazzed and excited!  It's not every day we get pro photos. Especially since I've always been a point and shoot kind of girl.  Sometimes I try to stage the pics, but it doesn't always come out as cool as it does in my mind. It doesn't matter because I post them regardless.
So my friend John, who's been reading my blog, appreciates the content, but he's tired of seeing my kitchen outlets in the background, messy counter tops, and just total lack of staging. He's a fantastic photographer.  I highly recommend you check out his work, Red Town Photography, on the world wide web. He also has a lot of free time right now, so he offered his services to the crew here and in exchange I'll feed him and buy him beer.
I don't think he has any idea what he's gotten himself into.
I really hope he brings a back drop like glamour shots from the early 90's.
And that he gives me lots of tips because I don't want to spoil you guys with one super cool entry and then go back to lame photos.
No matter what direction he decides to take this photo shoot (Lady Gaga like or Martha Stewart like), it's going to be great fun! I just hope the KitchenAid doesn't go all diva because we do not have bottled water in this household.
Want to know what we're going to bake for the shoot? I'm still working on it, but I'm sure it will be great! More to come soon.