Homemade Marshmallow Eggs
Have you ever tasted homemade marshmallow? The flavor doesn’t even compare to store bought marshmallow! And then you enrobe the homemade marshmallow in quality chocolate… ohhh! Marshmallow Heaven! Plus, you can create any shape for your homemade marshmallow with a plastic or silicone mold.
Servings: 60 2-inch eggs
Equipment
- Candy Thermometer
- Medium-sized Saucepan (one handle recommended)
- Wooden Spoon or Silicone Spatula
- Pastry Brush
- Stand mixer with metal bowl and whisk attachment (or hand mixer and a metal bowl)
- Plastic or Silicone Egg-shaped molds (another option in blog post)
- 4 Disposable Plastic Decorating Bags
- 4 Elastic Bands
- 4 Tall Drinking Glasses
- Waxed paper
- Pyrex round white bowl for melting chocolate
- Dipping tool or fork
Ingredients
The Bloom:
- ½ cup water
- 2 TBS unflavored gelatin Knox
The Syrup:
- 2 cups (419g) pure cane granulated sugar (pure cane has consistent cooking temperature)
- ¾ cup hot water
- 1 cup light corn syrup
Flavoring:
- 2 tsp vanilla
Marshmallow Coating:
- ½ - 1 cup confectioners sugar (powdered sugar)
- non-stick cooking spray (for molds)
Instructions
Preparation:
- Read all the instructions before you begin. Some steps are time sensitive and need prior preparation.
- Start by calibrating the candy thermometer. (Essential for success. Refer to blog post for details.)
- While the water is boiling for calibration, gather ingredients and tools. Spray molds with non-stick cooking spray.
- Open 4 plastic disposable decorating bags and place in tall drinking glasses. Fold decorating bag top down over the lip of the drinking glass (about 1-inch). Keep 4 elastic bands nearby to close the top of the filled decorating bags.
- Have powdered sugar nearby to sprinkle on top of molded marshmallow.
The Bloom:
- In the metal mixing bowl of your stand mixer, first add water, then sprinkle gelatin on top.
- Add the whisk attachment to your stand mixer (or prepare your hand-held mixer for use).
- Whisk the gelatin gently into the water to be sure all the gelatin gets wet.
The Syrup:
- Combine sugar, hot water and corn syrup in a medium saucepan.
- Add the candy thermometer to the side of the saucepan.
- Bring to a rolling boil on high heat, stirring with a wooden spoon or silicone spatula until sugar is dissolved, which is typically about the time bubbles are starting to rise to the top.
- Once the sugar mixture reaches boiling, use a pastry brush and the water to wash down the sugar on the sides of the saucepan, and behind the candy thermometer.
- Cook the sugar mixture to 240° F (115.5° C). Watch closely in last 15° as it changes temperature quickly.
- When the sugar syrup has reached temperature, take the saucepan off the heat immediately. (see note)
Creating Marshmallow:
- Without delay, begin mixing the bloom mixture with your stand mixer on low speed. While beating constantly on low speed, slowly pour cooked syrup mixture onto the bottom/side of the metal bowl so it reaches the gelatin bloom mixture, but not hitting the whisk. DO NOT scrape the edges of the saucepan to get all the syrup out. It will cause crystallization.
- Once the cooked syrup has been added, turn the stand mixer speed to medium. Mix until mixture turns white and fluffy and begins to thicken, about 5-6 minutes.
- Add the flavoring.
- Continue beating on medium-high speed another minute or two until you can see paths being created in the marshmallow, but not quite soft peaks.
- Pour marshmallow mixture into the prepared disposable cake decorating bags. Fill each one to about an inch from the top of the folded top of the bag, giving you about 2” of un-used bag. Do not overfill or it will be a sticky mess.
- When all the marshmallow mixture has been scraped (ok to scrape the bowl this time) out into the bags, close each bag with an elastic band so no marshmallow can escape out the back of the bag.
Filling the Molds:
- Cut the tip of the disposable decorating bag (one bag at a time).Squeeze the marshmallow into each mold by holding the tip of the bag in the center of the mold and squeeze so the marshmallow grows from the center. Stop squeezing to end the flow and circle the tip around a little to allow the thin streamer of marshmallow to stay on top as you move to the next mold. Don’t worry about the “mound” of marshmallow that remains, it will still settle and smooth out as it sits.
- Continue to fill all the molds using each of the disposable decorating bags until they are empty.
- Generously sprinkle powdered sugar over the top of all the molded marshmallow.
- Allow to sit for at least 8 hours or overnight.
Melting Chocolate:
- Remove the marshmallow from the molds and rub off the excess powdered sugar before dipping in chocolate.
- Prepare the dipping chocolate by putting 2 to 2 ½ pounds of milk chocolate in a microwave safe bowl. (I really like the white pyrex circle bowl because it holds heat just enough to keep the chocolate warm longer.)
- Microwave the chocolate drops for 1 minute (no more). And then stir. The chocolate will hardly be melted, but still important to stir. (see note)
- Microwave for 30 seconds and stir.
- Microwave again for 30 seconds, if needed, until when stirred, the chocolate is smooth. Try not to over heat the chocolate! If it is too hot to touch the container or the chocolate, IT IS TOO HOT.
Dipping Eggs in Chocolate:
- Use waxed paper on your countertop or in a baking sheet for your dipped eggs.
- One at a time, drop a marshmallow egg into the chocolate.
- Use your dipping tool or a fork to cover the egg with chocolate.
- Pick up the center of the bottom of the egg with your tool and tap the edge of the bowl a couple of times to let the chocolate drip.
- Move to the wax paper and release the tip of the egg onto the wax paper, lifting the other side up and away while you remove the tool from the egg. Often you have to slide the tip of the egg back into the chocolate pooling and dragging away from the egg so you don’t have a large foot of chocolate at the tip of the egg where you started placing it on the wax paper.
- Swirl your tool a little as the drizzle of chocolate breaks away from the tool and stays with the chocolate covered egg.
- Extra Decoration ideas: Drizzles of dark, milk or white chocolate. Sprinkles of flake salt, colored sprinkles or chocolate pieces before the chocolate hardens. Royal icing designs.
Notes
The Syrup:
- Candy is temperature sensitive. Over or undercooking candy creates a huge difference in the texture of the cooked candy. If by chance you need to leave the kitchen while you are cooking candy on the stove, turn off the heat and leave the candy uncovered on the stove, step away and do what needs to be done. Then return, turn on the stove again, resume cooking the candy to the correct temperature.
- I often take the thermometer out of the mixture with 1-2° left to cook and let the it drip into the sugar syrup before I put the thermometer onto a plate near the stove. Then take the saucepan off the heat.
- You must use a metal bowl, even if you are using a hand-held mixer instead of a stand mixer. The hot sugar syrup will be poured into this bowl and it will become very hot. DO NOT use plastic.
- Once you spray your plastic chocolate mold with baking spray (or any oil), it can no longer be used for chocolate. The residual oils will ruin the shine you will want on your chocolate if you were to pour chocolate into the mold.
- After microwaving chocolate for the first minute, it needs to be stirred. This step seems useless because the chocolate has hardly melted, BUT chocolate can burn and never change shape. Starting to stir at this point helps the chocolate change shape.
- Chocolate covered marshmallow eggs will stay fresh for several weeks as long as all the marshmallow has been covered by the chocolate.