In the immortal words of 1066 And All That, it’s magnificent, but it’s not the railway station. Which is to say that I did, in fact, succeed in making confectionery this time, and it even tastes good. I just didn’t manage to make marshmallow…
Vegan un-marshmallow. Tasty, and rather pretty, but manifestly not marshmallow.
I don’t know what I’ve made, to be honest. It’s texture is so far from marshmallow that I’m not even sure what I’d need to do to get it there. It isn’t light or elastic, the way a marshmallow should be, despite looking quite promising in the beating stage (it never actually formed peaks, however, though it seemed to come close) It’s soft, a little grainy, almost mushy in texture – barely set. It isn’t all that far from a thick, soft icing. Quite good actually. I know I’ve tasted something with this texture before, but I can’t think what. My brain keeps telling me ‘coconut ice’, but I’m fairly sure that isn’t it. Andrew says they remind him of Wizz Fizz, but I can’t think why – they don’t have the tang or the sourness (I suspect he’s just picking up on the pineapple flavouring in the yellow part).
From this...
... to this. So close, and yet so far...
It’s all very puzzling. I’m not quite sure where to go from here. I don’t know that adding more agar is going to help all that much, though I will try with just a little more. I’m actually thinking now about coming from a different angle entirely, like making my basic agar jellies, and then whipping them as they cool to see if that helps. Though, now I think of it, they aren’t all that elastic either. Pectin is better but pectin needs acidity, and marshmallow isn’t acid.
I’m also tempted to see if I can find a fake egg-white substitute to see if that helps lighten the mixture. Though I was hoping to create a recipe that would translate well between countries – you know, one which doesn’t rely on you being able to find a particular brand of something.
I’ll have to ponder this one a bit more. In the meantime, I have blood orange jellies to make – not to mention kale and potato enchiladas and maybe even sfoof…
And, of course, the MasterChef finals start tonight! I’m very excited – for one thing, I want to know who wins; for another, this means that in just over a week, I’ll have my evenings back!
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