Marshmallows
4 ounces pulverized gum arabic 1 cup cold water Flavoring to taste 1 cup pulverized sugar Pinch of salt Soak the gum arabic in the water for two hours; put in a double boiler; bring slowly to the boiling point and when the gum is dissolved strain through coarse muslin. Return to the double boiler with the sugar and stir long and steadily until the mixture is stiff and white. Remove from the fire; beat hard for a minute; flavor to taste and beat for a minute more. Pour into tins well dusted with cornstarch, cut into squares and roll in cornstarch and sugar.
This is a pre-gelatin marshmallow: a gum arabic paste rather than a whipped foam. Expect a dense, chewy lozenge closer to a Turkish delight or a throat pastille than to a bag of modern marshmallows, and judge the result on those terms.
- The hinge: stir, don't rushThe mixture only stiffens and whitens through prolonged stirring over gentle heat, and "long and steadily" is likely to mean a good half hour or more. There is no leavening, no gelatin and no beaten egg white here, so the pale colour and body come from aeration by the spoon and evaporation of water. Raising the heat to hurry it will scorch the sugar and give a tan, gritty paste.
- Gum arabicAlso sold as acacia gum (additive E414), still available from confectionery and baking suppliers in powder or in "tears" that must be crushed. Buy food grade; the grades sold for watercolour paint and for gilding are not intended for eating. Four ounces is about 3/4 to 1 cup of the powder, and it makes a genuinely thick mucilage with only a cup of water.
- Pulverized sugarIn period usage this meant sugar ground fine, without additives. Modern confectioners' sugar carries a small percentage of cornstarch, which is harmless here since the recipe dusts with cornstarch anyway. Superfine (caster) sugar works equally well as it dissolves in the hot gum.
- StrainingCoarse muslin means cheesecloth of two or three layers. Do this while the gum solution is hot and thin; once the sugar goes in, nothing will pass through a cloth. Undissolved specks and bark fragments are common in tear-form gum, so the step is not optional.
- Double boilerKeep the water below a hard boil and do not let the pan bottom touch it. The gum solution is prone to sticking, and a scorched layer will flavour the whole batch.
- FlavouringPeriod choices for this style were rose water, orange flower water or vanilla, added off the heat so the volatiles survive. Rose water and orange flower water are strong: start with half a teaspoon per batch and taste.
- Setting and cuttingPour about 3/4 inch deep into a small tin, roughly 6 by 6 inches, dusted heavily with cornstarch. Let it stand uncovered several hours or overnight before cutting with an oiled knife; cutting warm gives ragged, sticky edges.
- Yield and keepingOne cup each of sugar and water fills a small tin and gives roughly three dozen one-inch squares, fewer if the edges are trimmed. Store layered in cornstarch and sugar in a tin, not airtight plastic, since trapped moisture will make the surface tacky within a day.
The name records an ingredient that had already been replaced by the time this book was printed: true marshmallow paste was made from the mucilaginous root of Althaea officinalis, the marsh mallow, long used in European and Middle Eastern pharmacy as a demulcent for sore throats and coughs. Confectioners substituted gum arabic, the dried sap of acacia trees imported through the Sudan and Senegal, which gave the same smooth cohesive body more cheaply and reliably, and the sweet drifted from the apothecary's counter to the candy shop. Recipes of this gum-and-sugar type circulated widely in American household books through the nineteenth century, often alongside instructions for lozenges and cough drops. Commercially made gelatin, cheap and consistent from the 1890s onward, allowed the light whipped marshmallow familiar today, and gum arabic versions like this one persisted in the books as the older method.