I remember seeing Ricardo make these strawberry marshmallows on his show Ricardo and Friends and I was amazed! I knew you could make homemade marshmallows but with natural strawberry flavour? Now that is something I just had to try and share! So I made some and included it in my care package to my dad who has confirmed that he has received it and been enjoying it, phew!
You begin by making a strawberry puree. In a food processor blitz one cup of strawberries and strain the pulp out. You should get around 3/4 cup of puree.
Put the puree in a saucepan and add two envelops of gelatin and let sit. While that softens line an 8″ square pan with plastic wrap and oil lightly. In a separate bowl combine cornstarch and icing sugar. After about 5 minutes add granulated sugar and bring to a boil on the stove, remove from heat immediately and let cool for a few minutes.
Get a large bowl and place it over another bowl with some ice water in it. Scrape the strawberry mixture into the large bowl and add corn syrup. Beat with an electric mixer until it has cooled and formed stiff peaks, this should take around 5 minutes. It will become opaque and light in colour. Spread evenly into the pan and refrigerate for a few hours. Oh and this stuff is going to be sticky and very hard to spread by the way!
Once cooled you unmould the marshmallow on to a clean surface lightly dusted with cornstarch and icing sugar mixture. With a moistened blade, cut into squares. They are supposed to be 1 1/2″ but mine were more like 2″ because I am bad with measurements. Roll the marshmallows in the bowl with the icing sugar and cornstarch and shake off excess.
I was hoping for a ton of strawberry flavour but it is very subtle. The texture reminded me of gummy worms. My marshmallows did not seem to rise like Ricardo’s did and I would never call this a “super-easy” recipe to make. Yes, there are not many ingredients to work with but the process was a bit time consuming and the marshmallows were sticky and challenging to work with. That said, I think these are a very cool treat and an original idea so I give the recipe four out of five wooden spoons.
It is true that homemade marshmallows taste nothing like the dried up ones you get from stores. How fascinating to taste the real deal! Not sure these would work in hot chocolate but as a treat they are something special.
So the “super-easy” in the title is a bit of a misnomer, LOL? They look yummy!
Do you think there’s a way to modify this recipe to exclude the corn syrup and corn starch? I’m trying to get away from those types of processed corn-based foods (though it’s not easy).
Yum Yum Yum! I think marshmallow somehow brings out the kid in all of us, even though these look like a grown up version. They look fantastic, and along with that yummy Choc. Brittle Surprise, I think I may just have to give these a try as well. I really admire your willingness to venture into such creative foodie projects!
If there is a way to modify it, I don’t know what it is. You could try agave instead of corn syrup and just use icing sugar and not corn starch but that would totally be an experiment but might yield great results!
Thanks Ava! I do hope you give the candy making a shot, just make sure the wee ones are safely away from the hot stuff!
If you are trying to leave out corn starch, be careful… most powdered sugars already contain corn starch to prevent clumping. Discovered this when trying to make cupcakes for my allergic-to-corn cousin.
YUM!! These are the strawberry marshmallows you were talking about on my blog. These look great!!