Puff the Magic Mallow - Recap

Modern food culture, Alton says, is replete with delicacies once highly regarded and now relegated to culinary obscurity. One example is the marshmallow. Marshmallows were once hand made one at a time in fine shops and possessed fine, subtle flavors and a range of textures. But no more. Years of mediocrity have left palettes jaded. And that’s NOT all right with Alton. He thinks it’s time for true marshmallow lovers to take back the candy that, perhaps more than any other, qualifies as... Good Eats!

Alton poles a small boat through a swamp as he reminds viewers that marshmallows once grew on bushes. He picks one, hot and fresh, off a nearby bush. Then he confesses: marshmallows don’t actually grow on bushes. But without a plant called the “marsh mallow” they would not exist. That’s why Alton has come to this swamp – a voice interrupts to remind Alton he is in a marsh, not a swamp. As the camera pans out, viewers see that Alton has brought nutritional anthropologist Deb Duchon with him. She directs him to paddle to where she sees some Althaea officinalis not far away.

As they glide next to the drooped and somewhat unhealthy looking plant, Deb mentions that 15th century author Bartolomeo Platina devoted an entire chapter of his treatise De Honesta Voluptate et Valetudine (approximately: On Right Pleasure and Good Health) to the plant. Deb’s not dissuaded by this droopy specimen; she suspects its roots will contain more of the mucilage. Back then, mallow root was an important medicinal ingredient. But to make it into candy, Deb says they’ll have to boil, strain, boil with sugar and whip. That will combine the proteins and polysaccharides in the root. Fortunately, Alton knows easier ways to achieve the same effect.

Back in his kitchen, Alton searches a cabinet for Gum Arabic. Gum Arabic is the processed extract of the acacia tree that marshmallow makers have used to stabilize their product for nearly a century. Of course, most kitchens won’t have Gum Arabic – it is not easy to find. So Alton reaches instead for a box of gelatin. Made from the connective tissue of animals, gelatin can also stabilize marshmallows.

Alton starts by blooming his gelatin. This process of mixing the gelatin with cold water prepares it to dissolve in hot water. Gelatin and cold water go into the mixing bowl of Alton’s stand mixer, onto which he has fitted the whisk attachment. He lets that sit for while he builds sugar syrup from water, sugar, corn syrup and just a pinch of kosher salt over medium heat until the sugar dissolves.

With the gelatin blooming and the syrup cooking, Alton moves to his blackboard to explain a bit more about what’s going on. Candy making, he says, is about controlling the concentration of sugar syrups. Syrups, fudge, caramel, nougat, taffy, butterscotch, caramel – it’s all about the concentration of sugar. Time and experimentation has evolved the ball system, a semi-reliable system. It’s based on the fact that syrups of different concentrations behave differently when dropped into cold water. The lowest concentrations yield threads, and at higher concentrations one sees soft balls, firm balls, hard balls, and finally the “crack” stages. More scientifically include cooks have over time determined the temperatures involved, freeing amateurs of the need to learn by painful trial and error exactly what the vague definitions mean. In the modern candy kitchen thermometers replace abstruse knowledge.

Alton drops his thermometer into the syrup pot as he elaborates: as the water boils out of the syrup, the concentration of sugar rises, and with it the boiling point. So Alton wants to boil his syrup until it reaches 240º F. He expects this to take seven or eight minutes. A few minutes later, the syrup nears the required temperature. While waiting for that final few degrees, Alton brings up the subject of corn syrup. Corn syrup can prevent sugar molecules from binding together into big, crunchy crystals. This is because it’s not the same kind of molecule as sugar, so it cannot form crystals with sugar.

Sweet corn, despite the name, contains more starch than sugar. And starch is just a long chain of glucose molecules. If that’s true, it should taste sweet. Alton puts the question to a model of the tongue and one of its many taste buds, but the taste bud is unimpressed – the starch tastes like “library paste.” That’s because the tongue doesn’t handle molecules the size of starches. With some heat and a little acid (represented by a little girl who drops from the ceiling and taps the starch molecule with a wand), the starch changes into glucose. That’s still not too sweet, but with some enzymes (the little girl reappears) to create some fructose, the result is “high fructose corn syrup.” This is as sweet as or sweeter than sugar.

Alton’s syrup has reached 240º F so he kills the heat and removes the thermometer. Alton carefully carries it to the mixer, where his gelatin has bloomed, and lowers the mixing head. Turning the mixer to stir, he pours the syrup slowly down the side of the bowl. Once all the syrup is in, Alton steps his mixer to high. He wants to integrate air into the mix, and that will take time – thirteen to fifteen minutes worth of time. One minute before mixing finishes, Alton adds a little vanilla extract.

Air-whipped sugar syrup is sticky stuff, so Alton prepares his pan carefully. It’s a metal 9” x 13” pan that he chose for its nice sharp corners. He coats that with non-stick spray, but that isn’t enough by itself, so he shakes on a mixture of confectioner’s sugar and corn starch until all five sides bear a nice coating.

At this point Alton slowly turns off the mixer, raising the motor head as he does so the whipped syrup slides off the whisk. His puddle of goo has become a fluffy, white ball of goodness. Alton doesn’t want to waste any of it, although he knows he’ll never get all of it off the bowl, because it is so sticky. He uses non-stick spray on a silicone spatula to scoop the mixture from the bowl into the pan. The mixture began setting as soon as the agitation stopped, so there’s little time to waste. Alton smoothes his mix into the corners as quickly as he can. Even then some of it sticks to the spatula – something to lick off later. Alton dusts the top with more of the cornstarch and powdered sugar mixture. He’ll let it cool to room temperature before covering it with foil and allowing it to rest for at least another four hours (overnight would be better).

Three hours and some odd number of minutes later, Alton inverts his pan and the marshmallow layer falls right out. He dusts the top with more starch and sugar, then cuts it into strips with a pizza cutter. He lines up the strips before cross-cutting them to produce more or less cubical marshmallows (perfection is not required here – in fact, it’s the sign of the factory). For the remaining sticky edges, he dusts on more starch/sugar and then tosses the marshmallows around to coat them.

Stored in a tin or zip top bag, these marshmallows will last for two or three weeks. Less, perhaps, than a factory made mallow, but what they lack in longevity they make up in flavor. These marshmallows also work as ingredients in the perennial favorites like the puffed rice treat, or floated on top of cocoa (the Good Eats version, of course!)

For real mini-marshmallows, one might even extrude the mix. Alton puts some into a zip top bag with a wide nozzle and lays “beads” of the mixture onto a half sheet pan lined with parchment that has been liberally dusted with the sugar and starch mixture. More of that mixture goes on top of the bead. After it hardens Alton cuts it into smaller pieces with ordinary shears.

With a food safe mold you can make anything you want! Alton acquired a mold for chocolate rabbits at a junk shop. After washing it and coating it with non-stick spray, he seals it and waits four hours, and out pop sixteen little marshmallow rabbits! For those unsatisfied with white, Alton suggests adding food coloring to the mixture, or rolling the finished rabbits in colored sugar.

For those still unsatisfied, Alton proposes to “shoot for the moon.” He starts by setting a heating pad in a bowl, and setting another bowl inside of that. The inner bowl contains coarsely chopped good quality semi-sweet chocolate that Alton wants to melt. But he wants to melt it carefully, so it does not lose its “temper.” That, he explains, is a point near 100º F where “the melting points of the chocolate’s polymorphic fats align.” Melted properly, one can dip something into the chocolate and it will set up hard, not gooey. Alton sets a thermometer for 94º F.

Alton puts a dozen cookies onto a cooling rack that is on a sheet pan and pipes marshmallow onto each cookie, then topping it with another cookie to make a sandwich. By the time the marshmallow centers have set, Alton’s chocolate has melted. He dips one side of each sandwich into chocolate and returns it to the cooling rack, chocolate side up, to cool. Alton restrains himself from dipping both sides, judging that his would be too much chocolate. Those who grew up in the south know what to call this treat, but Alton refrains from saying that copyrighted name. However, helping hands display a picture of the moon to Alton’s right, and a pie to his left...

“Colonel Bob Boatwright” then explains that Zeus and the gods feasted on ambrosia. Lacking a recipe, enterprising southerners decided to devise their own. And he can explain how!

The colonel adds some heavy cream and sugar go into the bowl of the stand mixer. Using the whisk, he whips that until it’s like “a fluffy cloud.” When that’s done (almost overdone by the Colonel’s penchant for napping) he returns and adds sour cream and mixes that in more slowly. Into that he stirs Clementine segments, fresh pineapple, shredded coconut, chopped pecans, maraschino cherries and finally, homemade miniature marshmallows! He mixes all that and chills it for a few hours in the ice box, advising viewers to control their urge to snack. A few hours in the chill chest will reward their patience.

Alton agrees with “the colonel” – patience is often rewarded on Good Eats, and never more so then when making homemade marshmallows.

Share this article with your friends