Those Wiley Marshmallows!

Marshmallows ain’t easy.

Oh, I’m sure they can be, because you can buy them cheap just about anywhere. But to make them with all-natural ingredients, that’s a different story.

But now we’ve managed to master the marshmallow. After several different batches, I put together all the corrections to all the mistakes I made along the way, and got it right. (Although the not-quite-solid creme I made earlier this week is mighty tasty…)

So, what have we learned?

- Use fresh eggs, separate the whites from the yolks and go. You might think that you can use a carton of “egg whites” even though they’re more expensive and they say they’re 100% egg whites with nothing else added, but no. Real eggs.

- When the recipe says 250 F, it means 250 F. Below that you get a creamy mess, and above that you have hard caramel candy (I didn’t even add that to the egg whites, so I’m not sure what would have happened).

- Extracting the seeds from real vanilla beans is a world away from using vanilla extract.

- Even though the recipe says “5-quart mixer,” you can get away with a 4.5-quart; just be ready to clean up.

- Clean-up isn’t nearly as bad as you might think, because sugar is (thankfully!) water soluble and just rinses away in hot water.

Some of these mastered marshmallows will be cut and eat as is, but the rest are going to become the outside of a toasted pecan and chocolate sandwich treat. Any takers for either version?