Shamrock Marshmallows

I wanted to make something special for my kids for St. Patrick’s day.  So I decided to take Alton Brown’s marshmallow recipe add some food coloring and cut them up into shamrocks.  You can make these as special gifts for kids lunchbox or put them on top of a hot chocolate the moment they come home.  What a nice fun surprise.  Plus these homemade marshmallows taste so much better and fresher then the store bought kind.  They are also really easy to make provided you have a stand up mixer.  I guess you can use a hand one but you may make you develop some serious arm muscles.  You can make these marshmallows into any shape and/or color.  Just think of the possibilities: Valentine’s Day hearts, Happy Birthday letters, Easter Eggs it all depends on the cookie cutter.

You will need: 3 packets of unflavored gelatin, 1 cup of cold water (split into 2), 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar, 1 cup light corn syrup, 1/4 tsp kosher salt, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1/4 cup confectioners sugar, 1/4 cup cornstarch, green food coloring, nonstick spray.

Empty the gelatin bags into your mixer bowl.

cover with 1/2 cup of water and let it sit while we continue to cook.

Pour 1/2 cup of cold water into a pan,

add corn syrup

sugar

and salt.

Place the covered mixture medium/high heat and cook for 4 minutes.

Uncover and clip the candy thermometer into the side.  You can buy those thermometers in your grocery store just in case you do not have one at home.  They are pretty inexpensive and I promise to make some more candy recipes on this site so you can reuse it.

We are waiting for the temperature to reach 240 deg F, which takes about 8 minutes

look how glossy the sugar mixture has gotten.  Once it reaches the temperature remove immediately from the heat

Turn the mixer on low speed and slowly add the sugar mixture into the gelatin.  Alton says to pour it on the side of the bowl.  I was not as careful since I needed to snap pictures too.  Just make sure to add gradually and not dump it all at once.  When you add all the syrup increase the speed to high.

Keep whipping until the mixture becomes very thick and lukewarm about 15 minutes.  This is the coolest thing to watch with the kids.  I turned around and all of a sudden the mixture was all white and looked like from one of those laffy taffy candy machines, awesome.  During the last minute of whipping add vanilla.

and green food color.

While the mixture is whipping, mix the powdered sugar and

corn starch in the bowl.  I realize that they look almost identical in pictures and I could have just doubled up on the same photo.

Spray a 13 by 9 inch pan with nonstick cooking spray.

cover with cornstarch mixture.

When the mixture is ready pour it into the prepared pan.  Lick the pan, give it to the kids, they will love you forever, wait they already do.

Once the mixture is poured into the pan Alton says to cover it with more powder but I found that it was unnecessary since it dried out quickly.  Make sure not to discard the left over powder since we will be using it for cutting shapes.

Let it sit for 4 hours or overnight.  That is exactly why you need to give your kids the bowl to lick.  This way hopefully they will be set for waiting.

Before the cutting dip the cookie cutter in the powder mix so it does not stick to the gooey marshmallows.

Cut away.  You can always cut them into squares and serve them that way.

Here they are… ohhh soo good.

You can wrap them, give them away.

Or just allow one hungry monster to eat them right away.