S'mores with Home-Made Marshmallow

Deep-frying macaroni and cheese was quite a challenge, so I decided to step it back a little and make something easier. As my fourth blog post, I made s'mores on a stick, with home made marshmallows. I decided to go with this recipe because it's a little simpler, and I haven't made a dessert yet! The author, Matt Armendariz, states, "these taste even better than the s'mores of my youth because they feature homemade marshmallows" (173). And Armendariz was sertainly not lying about this. As always, I started with gathering my ingredients:

• Picks
• 2 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 4  cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tsp. light corn syrup
• 2 tbsp. (2 envelopes) unflavored gelatin
• 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 egg whites
• Powdered sugar, as needed

The first step is to line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set it off to the side. Then, to begin with making the marshmallow, stir gelatin into 1/3 cup water. In a separate bowl, place sugar, another 1/3 cup water, and corn syrup, and once mixed together put in a small saucepan over medium-high heat until boiled. After it has been boiled and the sugar dissolves, mix it into the gelatin mixture and let it sit for 5 minutes. As I was waiting for the five minutes to be up, I whipped the 1 1/2 egg whites (it was really hard to get just a half of an egg white) using an electrical mixer on low-medium speed. Following the proper timing, the sugar-gelatin mixture needs to be slowly poured into the egg whites. Whipping all of it together took a very long time, because you needed to wait until stiff peaks form. After doing this step, I realized there was an error somewhere; in the ingredients it states you need vanilla extract, but no where in the instructions does it say to put it in the mixture. So on a whim I put it in at the very end, and I don't know if that could have effected the marshmallows in any way. I also learned that I should read the directions thoroughly before starting the recipe, because I didn't realize that the marshmallows need to sit in a fridge for about 3 hours. Finally after a long, anticipating wait, I began adding the "s'more" part to the marshmallow. After cutting the settled marshmallow into 1 inch by 1 inch squares, put them on a stick and set aside on parchment paper. I crushed the graham crackers up into tiny pieces and set that aside, also, in a shallow dish. The final step is to melt the chocolate, dip the marshmallows in, then roll in graham cracker crumbs. It seems like the easiest part, but I ran into a problem. You're supposed to melt the chocolate chips in a double broiler over medium heat and stir it occasionally (173), but my chocolate melted in less than two minutes.

I added a whole bag, and it quickly hardened and burned. I have no idea why this happened, it was cooking at medium heat, as suggested, and I stirred occasionally, also as suggested, but it still didn't work out. This made it really hard to dip the 20-ish marshmallow squares I had and roll them in graham crackers. I ended up only being able to get about 7 done before the chocolate was completely unusable.

They may look like a complete fail, but they were actually pretty delicious! My family quickly devoured them. Overall, through the misleading directions and burnt chocolate, this recipe turned out alright. I probably wouldn't prefer to make them again, but if I did I would definitely choose from a different book with clearer instructions and a different type of chocolate.  

Do you prefer your s'mores black and burnt or golden brown?

Armendariz, Matt. On a Stick! Philadelphia, PA: Quirk, 2011. Print.