Marshmallows
2 tablespoons gelatine (rounded) 2 cups granulated sugar Pinch of salt Flavoring to taste.
Soak the gelatine in 8 tablespoons cold water. Heat the sugar with½ cup water until dissolved. Add gelatine to syrup and just bring it to a boil, take off the stove and let stand in a bowl until partially cool.
Add salt and flavoring, beat with a whip until soft, then with a large spoon until only soft enough to settle into a sheet.
Dust granite pans thickly with fine powdered sugar, pour in the candy about ½ inch deep, and set to cool until it will not come off the finger.
Turn out on powdered paper, cut in cubes and roll in sugar. Nuts, chocolate, or candied fruit may be beaten in, or the marshmallows may be rolled in grated cocoanut before being powdered. -Canadian Farm Cook Book.
FIVE ROSES keeps better than any other flour we know of, because in milling all dirt and fermentable matter are carefully removed. No inferior portions of the wheat, no little pieces of the oily germ can escape the keen-eyed millers of FIVE ROSES to wreck your baking hopes. Now you know why FIVE ROSES keeps sweet and sound so long.
A gelatine marshmallow of the type that replaced true marsh-mallow root confections around the turn of the century. It works, but two of its measurements need translating and the beating stage is where success or failure is decided.
- The gelatine"2 tablespoons rounded" of granulated gelatine is roughly 3 envelopes (about 3/4 oz / 21 g) of modern unflavoured powder. Period gelatine varied in strength, so err on the generous side; too little and the sheet will never firm enough to cut.
- Water measures8 tablespoons cold water for soaking is 1/2 cup. The syrup takes another 1/2 cup, so the whole batch carries a full cup of water against 2 cups sugar — a wet, soft-set marshmallow by design.
- No thermometer, and none neededThe syrup is only brought to a boil rather than cooked to a stage, so this is not a cooked-sugar marshmallow. Dissolve the sugar fully before it boils or the finished candy will feel gritty.
- The hinge: beat at the right momentLet the mixture cool until it is lukewarm and slightly thickened before whipping. Beat it hot and it will not hold air; let it set and it will tear rather than aerate. Whip until white, glossy and holding a slow ribbon, then finish with a spoon as the recipe directs, until it is only soft enough to settle into a sheet; timing varies with the batch and the beater.
- Granite pansGraniteware — enamelled sheet steel, the standard cheap pan of the period. Any 8-inch square or small rimmed pan does; line it with parchment as well as dusting, since this mixture grips bare metal.
- Powdered sugarModern confectioners' sugar contains cornstarch, which is an advantage here: it absorbs surface moisture. A half-and-half mix of confectioners' sugar and cornstarch is the usual dusting today.
- Setting and cutting"Until it will not come off the finger" means several hours; overnight at cool room temperature is better. Cut with a knife wiped with oil or dipped in hot water, then toss the cubes in the sugar mixture so every cut face is coated.
- YieldA large batch; at the 1/2-inch depth called for it will need more area than a single small pan. Store airtight; they weep in humidity.
- Flavouring and additions"Flavoring to taste" means about 1 to 2 teaspoons vanilla or rose water. Fold nuts, chopped candied fruit or grated coconut (the book's "cocoanut") in at the very end of beating, or the aeration collapses.
Marshmallows take their name from Althaea officinalis, the marsh mallow, whose root yields a sweet mucilage long used in lozenges for sore throats; French confectioners' pâte de guimauve was built on it, whipped with egg white and sugar. By the time this recipe was collected, root extract had been almost entirely displaced by commercial powdered gelatine, which is generally said to have become cheap and reliable around the turn of the twentieth century, and which is why a farm cookbook could offer marshmallows as ordinary home candy rather than a druggist's specialty. The credit line to the Canadian Farm Cook Book is characteristic of the Five Roses collection, which was assembled by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company from contributed and reprinted recipes and distributed to promote its flour, a line that follows a candy needing no flour at all.