meyer lemon marshmallows

I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a fan of sugary things, and that includes marshmallows. But I am a fan of trying new recipes. When a friend of mine was raving about some homemade marshmallows she tried from a local bakery, I was intrigued. I didn’t even know you could make marshmallows at home! So I looked up some recipes and gave it a shot. Oh my, homemade marshmallows are nothing like store-bought. They’re so light and fluffy. Yes, generally too sugary for my taste, but I’ve experimented with different flavours over the years and I’ve definitely indulged in more than a few of them. Especially dipped in chocolate. 

I was actually planning to make plain lemon marshmallows this week, but I stopped at Whole Foods the other day and they had some absolutely gorgeous meyer lemons. If you don’t know what they are, they’re a cross between a lemon and an orange. They look like lemons, but their skin is more of an orange-y colour. And while they definitely taste like lemon, they’re sweeter. And so my plan to make lemon marshmallows changed just slightly.

The first recipe I tried when I made my own marshmallows was from Peter Greweling’s Chocolates and Confections. I’ve always had success with this recipe so I’ve never bothered trying any others. But because that one calls for an unusual ingredient, for this post I decided to try his slightly more dumbed down version of the recipe from Chocolates and Confections at Home. The only real difference between the two recipes is that the At Home version skips the invert sugar and adjusts the amounts of the honey and corn syrup. I think I actually like the texture of this one even better. This may be my new go-to recipe.

I’ve played around with different flavours with Greweling’s recipe before, but I hadn’t tried lemon yet. I read a few different recipes online and decided to try just replacing the water that the gelatin is bloomed in with fresh squeezed lemon juice. I also added lemon zest at the mixing stage, but when I cleaned up afterwards I found the zest all stuck to the whisk attachment; so I don’t think any of it ended up in the marshmallows themselves. Oh well. I’ve seen other recipes where the zest is added to the sugar at the cooking stage, but I was worried about burning it since it cooks to such a high temperature. Regardless, I’m very happy with the way these turned out. The lemon flavour is really pronounced (which I love) – even with all the sugar from the marshmallows, some of the tartness of the lemon still comes through. I think they taste like a lemon meringue pie. One of my coworkers declared the flavour “ambrosia”. If you want something a little more subtle, you could probably cut the amount of lemon juice and make up the difference with water, but I’d recommend trying them full strength first. At some point in the future I’ll definitely try these with regular lemons too. I’ll play around with adding the zest at a different stage as well.

If you’ve never made marshmallows before, don’t be afraid! It’s really not difficult at all. Just be very careful with the hot sugar. There’s a great discussion over at eGullet (36 pages and counting) about making homemade marshmallows. There are tons of tips and tricks and links to different recipes. I got a lot of great advice from there when I first started making them.

Because these are pretty much pure sugar, they’re incredibly sticky. To prevent the finished marshmallows from sticking to everything in sight, you’ll want to coat them with a mixture of powdered sugar and starch. I’ve read that potato starch (if you can find it) is the best option for keeping the stickiness in check, but cornstarch will work fine too. I haven’t tried it personally, but rice starch is another option.

All the recipes I’ve seen recommend cutting the finished marshmallows with a well-oiled pizza cutter or scissors. I struggled with this method for a long time and personally found it to be a sticky mess. I was constantly having to stop and wash and re-oil the cutter, and the marshmallow pieces were sticking to everything. I always dreaded the cutting process.

Then one day I read about a different technique, tried it, and have never looked back. Skip the oil and just use a liberal amount of the powdered sugar/starch mixture.

What I do is spoon a layer of the starch mixture on top of my cooled slab of marshmallows, cover it with a cutting board and gently turn it over so I can coat the other side as well. Again, liberally. I’m talking about a quarter inch or more thick layer over the whole slab and spilling over the sides.

I use a sharp chef’s knife the same length as the slab so I can slice right through in one smooth motion. The first cut will stick a bit, but there is such an excess of starch mixture both top and bottom of the slab that enough of it will coat the knife to prevent future sticking, and transfer to the marshmallow edges as they’re cut. I’ll also make sure to spread the piles of starch around to cover the cut edges as I go.

Then I transfer the cut marshmallow squares to my bowl of starch mixture and toss them til they’re well coated, then transfer them to a sieve where I shake off the excess.

I know it sounds like a mess and you’d think there’d be powdered sugar everywhere, but it’s not! I put down parchment paper on my work surface so clean-up afterwards is really simple. I just pick up the parchment and pour all the starch mixture back into a bag to save for the next batch of marshmallows. Parchment paper is your friend.