By Cari Hoover of Vicariously Speaking
“Easily make marshmallows with six ingredients,” Martha Stewart’s recipe says. “Pulling off a homemade marshmallow recipe is easier than you think,” she boasts.
My family puts marshmallows away like they are going out of style. Big ones for the massive amounts of s’mores we consume, little ones floating in hot chocolate, flavored ones just because, marshmallows for every season or holiday … you name it, we partake. I figured this would be a fun little experiment for the kids and me, not to mention a little bonding time done over our love for everything marshmallow.
It started out simple enough. The three-year-old, MacKenzie, helped me by pouring the gelatin packets and water into a large bowl. Next, I measured sugar, corn syrup, and root beer extract into a pot and started to heat on the stove. The original recipe called for vanilla extract, but come on, root beer?! How awesome does a root beer flavored marshmallow sound? Um, pretty awesome. Everything was still on easy street. Jameson, my 9-year-old, got home from running an errand with his dad and asked to join in. Sure! We were having so much freaking fun!
The kids got bored about five minutes into the cooking time of the sugar mixture and decided squirting each other with water guns was more entertaining. Whatever. Get out of my kitchen. I was having fun.
The allotted cooking time elapsed and I was instructed to pour this mixture into the water-gelatin mixture and beat on high for fifteen minutes. I pulled out my hand mixer and got to work.
Five minutes. The mixture was becoming fluffier. How come I have never done this before? This is so easy! “Oh cool,” I yelled loudly, enticing the kids back into the kitchen to watch the liquid form into a light brown, fluffy cloud in my bowl. James and MacKenzie threw their water guns in the sink and shimmied up to the counter to watch the spectacle. My 17-year-old, Alaina, arrived home from work and she, too, joined in on the show.
Eight minutes. The mixture was getting stiffer. Hmm … stiffer isn’t necessarily the best word to describe my soon-to-be marshmallows. It was starting to resemble those salt water taffy pulls you always see at the state fair. In addition, my hand mixer was starting to make a funny whining sound. Is that smoke? The taffy-like substance worked its way up the beaters of the hand mixer, and it took everything in my being to force it back down into the bowl.
The doorbell rang, and my oldest went to answer the door. She ran back into the kitchen, saying that another local beekeeper from the area saw my hives out front and wanted to talk to me. I passed the hand mixer over to my daughter and explained that she had another five minutes to mix. I headed to the door, and as I was about to answer, I heard the mixer stop. Sigh. I should have handed the mixer over to the three-year-old.
Finishing my conversation, I headed back in the kitchen, only to find my children had obviously had enough of the marshmallow-making game; they were gone. Alaina had left the blender in the bowl of marshmallow goo. I flipped the switch on the blender. It didn’t turn on. The concoction had formed into a sort of adhesive that had worked its way up the beaters of the mixer and lodged itself in the gears, blowing the motor. I tried to pull, pull, pull the mixer out of the bowl and again was reminded of the salt water taffy pull at the state fair. This shit did not want to let go of the blender! It finally pulled free, flinging this sticky gum-like material when it released. My hand blender was toast.
The recipe stated to pour the mixture into a glass 8 x 10 baking dish that had been sprinkled heavily with confectioner’s sugar. Only one small little problem, Mar-tha: the marshmallow mixture had concreted itself to the bottom of the bowl. I covered my hands in confectioner’s sugar and attempt to scrape the sides of the bowl with my fingers. No go. It was like trying to manipulate dried spackle.
I tried a different route and sprayed cooking oil all over my fingers and hands. This seemed to be doing the trick – I started pulling, pulling, pulling the sticky, gooey substance out of the bottom of the bowl. It came out in strings, and once it separated from the rest of the mixture, flung across the room like it was launched out of a catapult. The oil from my hands made the surface of the marshmallow-mix even gooier, if at all possible. Once this lovely fucking mixture hit a surface, it immediately melded itself to it—the counter, my arms, the floor, the sink, the ceiling, the kitchen cabinets, various kitchen implements. I pressed as much of the mixture as I could into the glass baking dish, dumped in a bunch of confectioner’s sugar, and called it good.
I snuck a quick taste, and my face fused to the back of my hand.
My 17-year-old finally came to my rescue about an hour later. I couldn’t move: by this point I had glued my face and one hand to the counter and my feet were planted in a pile of this adhesive on the floor. On a positive note, I was able to spend the hour reflecting on my marshmallow-making debacle. I just experienced something somewhere in between The Blob and the attack of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. Never, ever, ever again will I attempt to make something Martha states is easy and that I can purchase for less than $2.00.
Fuck you, Martha Stewart. You owe me a hand blender.
This post was originally published on Vicariously Speaking.
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