Peppermint Marshmallows

I have been on a real marshmallow kick lately. It's partially because I am obsessed with my Christmas baking but also because of the cold weather... what better to make than hot chocolate with marshmallows (as evidenced in my Eats & Smiles post last week).

In addition to those two very compelling reasons, I had one other very exciting reason for the marshmallow making... I signed up (a few weeks ago) for a food bloggers cookie swap! This swap was the brainchild of Lindsay of Love and Olive Oil and Julie of The Little Kitchen. What a great way to connect with a very vibrant food blogging community and share your wares!

They will be doing a round-up of all of the swap recipes (I will include a link once the recipes have been posted). You can also follow #fbcookieswap on Twitter to see some of the action unfold!

While I cannot yet share my cookie swap recipe here (come back on the 12th!), I can and will share the Peppermint Marshmallows with you!

Ingredients:

1 cup cold water

2.5 packets unflavoured gelatin powder (~18g)

1/2 cup light corn syrup

2 cups white sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons peppermint extract

The process is the same as with the Chocolate Stout Marshmallows or the Festive Marshmallows (though I have since reduced the corn syrup from this recipe).

A few more things that I have learned about marshmallows:

- I really like using my silicone baking trays for the marshmallow goo... While I still spray and coat it with icing sugar, I tap out any extra icing sugar and am left with crisper edges than with the folded (and sometimes crumpled) parchment paper.

- If I don't have everything setup before that sugar reaches its boiling point, the whole process is infinitely more stressful than it needs to be. Mise en place, friends, mise en place.

- Personally, I like nice small symmetrical marshmallows... so I use a larger tray and cut accordingly.

- Once you've coated the sides of your cut marshmallows with icing sugar, toss them into a plastic bag or container and into the freezer! They thaw very quickly but don't go stale from sitting on the counter. I like having marshmallows at my disposal but know that there is no possible way that I could get through a tray of them before I start to lose interest.

- Take the extra moment to decorate the marshmallows. While I didn't decorate this particular batch of Peppermint Marshmallows (because they were part of a larger baking scheme), it really does take the presentation to the next level.

- Wipe your cutting blade with a bit of vegetable oil before beginning to cut. It really saves you from a sticky marshmallow knife... and a bit of cursing.