The Marshmallow: Food of the Gods (plus a recipe!)

By Alexander Fox

Christopher Fox photos

Today the marshmallow is thought of simply as a garnish, a binder for s’mores, or a filling for lava cakes, but this tasty treat is actually more than four thousand years old.

In Ancient Egypt, the root sap of the mallow plant was mixed with fruits and nuts to create a primitive sort of Rice Krispies Treat. These desserts were highly coveted and exclusively consumed by the Pharaohs, who were deified as gods on earth. That’s right: marshmallows were once literally food for the gods.

Four thousand years later, modern store-bought marshmallows bear little resemblance to their ancient ancestors.

• A kitchen mixer with whisk attachment

• A candy thermometer

• A clean kitchen towel

• Cookie cutters

• A sheet pan or 9-inch x 13-inch Pyrex

Long-gone mallow sap has been replaced by gelatin, a far more abundant and stable ingredient that allows for greater production.

According to the National Confectioners Association, Americans today buy more than 90 million pounds of marshmallows every year – more than 5.8 billion individualmarshmallows – making the United States the world’s largest consumer of these sweet morsels.

In order to get more in touch with the marshmallow of yesteryear, I needed a Marshmallow Maestro, someone who, if born 4,000 years earlier in the Lower Nile Delta of Egypt, would literally have been a dessert chef for the gods. If ever there was such a person, it’s Stephanie Bairos-Horn.

Stephanie is the owner and operator of The Mindful Oven, an allergy-friendly baking service founded in 2014 that caters to a customer’s sweet tooth and allergies.

“I started baking allergy-friendly treats when my husband was diagnosed with Celiac disease in 2013,” she said. “I’ve always baked, but when he was diagnosed, it was like starting from scratch.”

Stephanie explained that as awareness of food sensitivities and different eatinghabits spreads, alternative ingredients are becoming far more accessible, inspiring a baking process more like chemistry than a culinary art.

“I look in the America’s Test Kitchen cookbook to learn the science behind an ingredient and then make it allergy-friendly. Many of my friends are vegan or have obscure allergies and I don’t want them to not eat something or feel left out,” she said. “But I don’t want the food to taste like crap. I hate it when someone says ‘Hey, this is good for gluten-free.’ I don’t want it to be good for gluten-free, I want it to be good no matter what.”

While Stephanie takes inspiration from her children, she warns that marshmallow production is not a family affair.

“You don’t want to do this at home with kids,” she said. “With the hair and the hot molten sugar, let the kids pick out flavors and then send them to school.” You’ll need the space and the concentration, she said, as marshmallow creation has moments of quiet and chaos.

Stephanie explained that the flavor in marshmallows is “just plain vanilla,” so they’re really a blank slate; you can blend whatever flavors you want. And while the marshmallow is a catalyst for your culinary mind, this recipe sticks with the tried and true vanilla bean marshmallow.

• ½ cup room temperature water

• 1½ cups sugar

• 1 cup corn syrup

• ¼ tsp Himalayan salt

• ½ cup ice-cold water

• 6½ tsp kosher gelatin

• 1 vanilla bean pod

• ½ cup corn starch

• ½ cup confectioners sugar

Step one requires you to “bloom” the gelatin for three to five minutes. In the mixer bowl, sprinkle the gelatin into ice-cold water. The gelatin will not dissolve unless pre-soaked. Stephanie’s protip for making sure you have an even bloom is to mix the gelatin with a fork by scraping the mixture against the side of the bowl. This will ensure that you don’t have any unappetizing clumps of raw gelatin.

While the gelatin is blooming, begin the syrup. In a small saucepan, mix the water, sugar, corn syrup, and Himalayan salt. The corn syrup acts as a medium to heat up the sugar and the water at the same rate, so don’t try to be healthy and take it out or the sugar will caramelize (you’re making marshmallows—the time for healthy choices is over). Once those ingredients are in the saucepan, heat the mixture to 240 degrees. This is the most pivotal step—240 on the dot! To make sure you are getting an accurate reading, a candy thermometer is the best tool. At 240 degrees, the sugar enters the “soft ball” stage, reflecting the sugar’s pliability when dropped into a cold liquid, which is exactly what we will be doing in the next step.

When ready, turn the burner off and add the syrup to the mixing bowl with the speed on low. Then set the mixer to the highest speed possible and set your timer for 10 minutes.

A cautionary note: at 240 degrees, what you have just created is culinary napalm, so BE CAREFUL when pouring! To prevent splattering, aim for the bowl and not the whisk. During Stephanie’s demonstration, she wrapped a kitchen towel around the mixer to dampen the noise and to stop searing gelatin from flying around the room. When I made my own, I made sure the towel was wet to keep it from falling off.

While the fluff mixture thickens, add the beans from one vanilla bean pod into the bowl. Vanilla beans can be bought just about anywhere spices are sold; look for pods that are plump and glossy. To extract the seeds, use a paring knife to bisect the pod lengthwise. Once opened, use the knife to scrape the seeds out and into the mixer. Don’t throw away the pods when you’re finished. They’ll still have a lot of flavor and can be used to infuse some vanilla into your day. I soaked them in some milk for my morning coffee.

Next, in a small bowl combine the confectioners sugar and corn starch and dust the pan with the mixture. Be sure to save some for later.

When the timer goes off, turn off the mixer and pour the mixture onto the dusted receptacle to cure for at least four hours. Once the mixture has settled into the pan, sprinkle the rest of the confectioners sugar and corn starch mixture over the top.

After four hours have passed, the marshmallow fluff can hold its shape. Use cookie cutters to divvy up the marshmallows. Unlike cookie dough, you cannot recombine the excess marshmallow fluff due to the corn starch and confectioners sugar, so Stephanie recommends repurposing the scraps into a lava cake filling or cubing it up into mini marshmallows for hot chocolate.

Marshmallows have a three-week shelf life, but the longer they sit, the more they will begin to taste like the store-bought variety, which is why, Stephanie explained, store-bought marshmallows have that specific taste—they are just past their due date for freshness. “I won’t even sell mine if they have been on the shelves longer than three weeks. Instead I trade them out with fresh batches.”

While today’s mass-produced marshmallows are on the simple side, nothing tastes quiet like a fresh homemade one. If you want to try some for yourself before making them at home, you can find Stephanie’s Mindful Oven marshmallows at Brookside Bagels in Simsbury or order some on her Facebook page, The Mindful Oven.