Coconut Marshmallows for a special birthday

Ever since I read an extensive article about making home-made marshmallows in Delicious magazine, I wanted to make some. But without a sugar thermometer and not enough free time for experiments I kept them in my recipe wish list for the blog for quite some time.

The time to make them finally came last May. My son's birthday party had to be Pingu themed as this was the most memorable thing he's been a fan of for the past year. So maintaining the tradition from previous years, here we go with Penguin and ice themed birthday at the end of May. But ice and summer (even the British summer) are actually a very good combination - thinking of ice cream. There ware lots of ice cream  and sprinkles and decorations and toppings and generally ice cream madness.

The marshmallows were the perfect pick for igloo blocks I thought - and was right.
I just could not resist the cute fluffy airy deliciousness of this home made treat. They are not very complicated to make provided you're not afraid to deal with gelatin, sugar thermometer and boiling sugar syrup in the same time.

A note to myself  - they were overtly sweet - so I shall be looking for a way to reduce sugar or reduce the size although this size worked perfectly for my igloo building blocks idea.

Coconut coated Vanilla Marshmallows

Recipe:

(makes around 45 big squares - so could be easily halved)

I adapted Brownie Points basic marshmallows recipe adjusting the sugar contents but it still was too sweet - something to work out next time.

28 g powdered gelatin

180 ml water (or other liquid - like cocnut milk)

1 tbsp vanilla extract

2 cups sugar

150 ml water

200 g golden syrup

1/2 tsp salt

rice four 

confectioner's sugar

200 desiccated coconut

 Method:

First prepare the gelatin - sprinkle the gelatin in the cols water or liquid and leave to soak and absorb the water - 10 minutes. Then heat the mixture for a very short period - 1-2 minutes until it liquefies and set aside.

In the meantime - the 10 minutes - combine the sugar, water, golden syrup and salt in a heavy bottom sauce pan and bring to the boil until it reaches the soft ball stage - 115 degrees C. 

Remove from heat and transfer to a bigger bowl. Add the liquefied gelatin and start mixing with a hand mixer at high speed for between 8 and 10 minutes. The mixture will expand absorbing air and change colour to opaque white and consistency to light and fluffy. At that stage add the vanilla extract and in case you are adding some colouring that is the time.

Line a mould with parchment paper and spray with oil. I also sprinkled some desiccated coconut to allow easy release. 

Transfer the white mixture to the mould and leave overnight.

On the next day using oiled knife cut wide strips and then make cubes.

The cues are going to be very sticky so very quickly coat in the desiccated coconut and icing sugar (and/or corn flour - I didn't use corn flour this time.) 

The marshmallows are in their best condition kept in an airtight container for 5-6 days.