Yeah Hooray it's Marshmallow Day!

An exciting thing happened today...we made marshmallows! It was very delightful and actually very easy. We also made caramel gelee and milk chocolate panna cotta and whipping cream and chocolate and sugar-dipped grapefruit rind and I'm very glad that it's the weekend because all this cooking has made me tired!

The whole point of today's lesson was to learn how to use gelatin and boy did we learn. There are two different types of gelatin: a leaf gelatin which is sold in very thin sheets and granulated gelatin which is a powder (and also is the type of gelatin that we are all most familiar with...ever made jello? Yeah, that's granulated gelatin you are jelling). Oh, and another random fact, gelatin is made of pig's feet -- is that not totally freaky?! The first thing we made was the panna cotta; an Italian dessert which literally means "cooked cream". It was a very easy and quick dessert to put together but it was not nearly as exciting as making the marshmallows and as such, I won't bore you with the process and nor will I bore you will the process for the gelee, especially since even I am not sure what gelee is. We made caramel gelee but it had not chilled when we left school this afternoon. I think it is going to turn out just like fancy-pants-jello though and that does not delight me nearly as much as the making of the marshmallows so that is what I'm going to tell you about.

The process of the marshmallows was really quite simple; we started by making a Swiss meringue, or in other words, by whisking egg whites, sugar, corn syrup and water in in double boiler until it was steaming hot and ribbon-y. Then, we put the liquid marshmallows into the bowl of a kitchen aid mixer, added the flavourings (rose water and pink food coloring) and softened gelatin and turned on the mixer and mixed until the contents were nice and marshmallow-y (ie: until it was thick and triple in volume). Then, we poured the marshmallows onto a sheet pan, letting them set for about an hour before cutting and decorating with chocolate. It was so easy and who knew?! All the times that I bought jiffy puff when it was that easy to make my own! And, who knew that when Williams Sonoma charged $22 for about 18 marshmallows that it was so easy to make your own! Even though our marshmallows were tinted pink as you will sort of see in the picture, they not did not set as pink as we had originally tinted them and then some of that pink tint was hidden by the powdered sugar we had to roll them in, in order for them to not be so sticky. Regardless of this minor visual error, they were quite tasty and delightfully airy and pretty.


A perfectly lovely rose marshmallow drizzled with dark chocolate.

Now, just so y'all know, there is no school again until Wednesday because our school is on holiday for Passover Monday and Tuesday and then on Wednesday, our class is not going to be in the kitchen because we are taking a field trip to a number of New York City bakeries. So, if you don't see a school-related blog in the next few days, I haven't quit school to join the circus, we are just not in session.