I haven’t food blogged in a while now. Most recently, I whined about the new Blueberry Morning, and reviewed Nathan’s Coney Dogs. But not much real foodie posting recently.
On my old food blog, I used to post once every week or so with a restaurant review, good and bad cooking experiences, or just some fun tidbits. It’s not that I ran out of material since then, I’ve just not had the time. Of course, that hasn’t changed, but I figure I should be able to mix in some gastronomical adventures. Since I’m not just about becoming a daddy, it’s good to make sure people know I’m not totally obsessive.
So, how ’bout some Rice Krispy treats? Yah yah - we’re not exactly talking about gourmet desert here, but they are one of my favs, they’re easy to make, and I like to take them to parties. So, I was asked to bring them to a Super Bowl bash this past Sunday. But, me being me, I want to make something home-made. Hence, home-made marshmallows.
Saw Alton Brown make these and figured it looked easy enough. Turns out, it’s easy enough. I don’t make candy often, so the cooking corn syrup and sugar to temperature worried me a bit. I wonder if I could make darker marshmallows if I simply cook the mix to a warmer temp? Or would this actually ruin them?
I poured this mixture slowly into the KitchenAid - the MVP among our kitchen appliances. On the bottom of the bowl, some gelatin had bloomed (the picture was dark and nasty, so I’m not posting it. Once the sugar starts to get happy with the geletin, then the rapid whipping begins. Add some vanilla at the end and that’s literally all that’s goes into homemade marshmallows. Some ingredients present in the store bought kind include artificial flavor, tetrasodium pyrophosphate, and blue #1. I couldn’t find any of those in my pantry.
Eventually (like 15 minutes later) the fluffiness expands enough to form marshmallows. If you ever try this though - let me warn you - this stuff is by far the stickiest substance in the kitchen. It won’t hold like glue - but let’s just say you aren’t wiping it off your hands easily. I pretty much sprayed everything that might touch it with cooking spray, and it still stuck. As you can see the pan also has a mixture of corn starch and powdered sugar. There must be a way at this point to jar this up and use it as marshmallow fluff - yum. I was also thinking I could theoretically just start from this point with making rice krispy treats.
I love this next shot, as the snow of starch/sugar falls down to coat the sticky gooeyness. RH, T is clearly getting the hang of our camera. It also reminds me of a consulting trip I went on at my previous job (which is now like 8 years ago). While I don’t miss being sent out of town and country on Easter(I’m not bitter, really!), one of the things I do truly miss about that job was seeing all kinds factories, often times food factories. I’ve seen dog food, pasta sauce (I once had to walk through 5 inches of cream and butter when someone pulled the wrong lever), Chef Boy RD, fast food hamburgers, and yes - marshmallows in mass production. And I mean mass! During my tour, I had to wear all kinds of protective clothing, booties, and a hair net. I felt like we were hanging in the clouds during my visit to the cutting room where they dust the cornstarch onto the mixture. Everything and everyone was coated with a white powder, it was almost surreal. Picture this a million times over.
Leave it to set for a few hours, carefully dump, and voila - a big marshmallow!
I tried a few cutting techniques - only a pizza cutter worked, which was Alton Brown’s suggested implement. In the factory, they extruded the mix, dusted it right away, and used a giant automated cutter.
A nice closeup - hopefully this shows you the texture. These pictures should open up to a large version - this one is a must. As you can see, they are imperfect, which makes them cool.
After cutting, toss in more of the cornstarch/powdered sugar mix
And - the finished product! It felt kinda sad melting them down with butter in order to make the treats, but it was worth it. The flavor was outstanding - I’m not sure if I’ll ever buy yucky preservative laden marshmallows again.
Posted on February 6th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Food
YUM! So did you just do standard run-of-the-mill treats after all that?
The kids and I found that it is sort of fun to use cookie cutters on our rice krispy treats. You can also adding frosting/M&M’s/chocolate chips for visual and culinary flare. My favorite is still rice krispy treats smothered in melted chocolate “chips”.
Okay I just happend to stumble on your blog from BBs and here I find this super-terrific post! I so so so so want to try this! It sounds so very nummy. Looking forward to more foodie stuff!
And here I was all along assuming that marshmallows were ‘food’ that could only be ‘produced’ in a laboratory setting. Kind of like velveeta… Or Tang… Learn something every day. Are velveeta and tang also food? BTW - my mouth is watering. I love rice krispie treats!
Lisa - yah - we made football shapes - the red head had a cookie cutter. I think I’ll add some of your suggestions to the next batch! If you think about it, you could take many kinds of cereal and make marshmallow treats. I’m thinking cocoa pebbles.
Bear’s mommy - thanks for stopping by! I’ll check out your blog then. I’ve got a few food posts in mind.
J - never much cared for tang. Velveeta has a few uses though, but I don’t think it’s really food either