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Marshmallows
2 tablespoons gelatine 2 tablespoons cold water 2 cups sugar 1/2 cup hot water 1/4 teaspoon cream tartar 1 egg white, beaten stiff Soften gelatine in cold water. Boil sugar and water and cream of tartar until it spins a thread. Pour hot syrup over softened gelatine, stirring continually. Add this mixture to beaten egg white and beat until thick. Pour into pans well sprinkled with powdered sugar and sift well over top.
A straightforward gelatine marshmallow of the type that replaced marsh-mallow root and gum arabic in home kitchens. The syrup stage is what decides whether you get a cut-able slab or a sticky puddle.
- Cook the syrup to a number"Spins a thread" describes roughly 230-234F, within the thread stage. For marshmallows that hold their shape when cut, take the syrup to 240F (soft-ball) on a thermometer; below that the set tends to stay slack.
- Gelatine quantityTwo tablespoons is about half an ounce, or two standard 1/4-oz envelopes of powdered gelatine. Granulated gelatine of this period was commonly sold loose in a box rather than in pre-measured envelopes, which may be why the book measures it by the spoon.
- Softening waterTwo tablespoons of cold water will not fully bloom two tablespoons of gelatine; the modern ratio is four to five parts water to one of gelatine. Use about 1/4 cup and let it stand five minutes until it looks like wet sand.
- Cream of tartarIt is there to invert part of the sugar and keep the syrup from crystallising, not for flavour. Do not leave it out, and do not stir the syrup once it boils.
- The beatingExpect eight to twelve minutes in a stand mixer, not one or two. The mixture should triple, turn opaque white, and hold a ribbon on the beater before it goes into the pan.
- Egg whiteThe hot syrup is diluted by the gelatine before it reaches the white, so the white is not fully cooked. If that matters for who is eating it, use pasteurised whites.
- Pan and dustingAn 8-inch square pan gives a slab about an inch thick. A half-and-half mix of powdered sugar and cornstarch dusts better than sugar alone, which draws moisture and goes tacky.
- Setting and cuttingLeave uncovered at room temperature four hours or overnight before cutting; refrigeration makes them weep. Cut with an oiled knife or pizza wheel and toss the cut faces in more sugar.
- YieldRoughly 40 to 50 one-inch squares. Stored airtight with a little of the dusting sugar they keep about two weeks.