Homemade Holiday Marshmallows

I've mentioned before that besides crafting I also enjoy baking. I've always wondered about making homemade marshmallows but was never brave enough to try it until yesterday. Now I have a delicious batch of flavored marshmallows with a chocolate drizzle on top and they weren't even that hard to make! One of the things I like most is that you can flavor the recipe based on personal preference or the holiday, like orange color and flavoring for Easter or red color and peppermint flavor for Christmas. I found this recipe on Allrecipes.com and while the recipe itself was good, the instructions were a bit brief. Here's both the recipe and step by step photo instructions.

Ingredients (makes 60 marshmallows a similar size as the large store bought ones)

• 2 cups white sugar
• 1 tablespoon light corn syrup
• 1 1/4 cups water, divided
• 4 tablespoons unflavored gelatin
• 2 egg whites
• 1 teaspoon flavored extract (you can use vanilla but then these seem very similar to store-bought marshmallows and not worth the effort!)
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar for dusting
• 1 1/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips for drizzling on top

1. In a medium or large saucepan mix together the white sugar, corn syrup, and 3/4 cup water. You'll be adding more ingredients later so don't use a smaller saucepan. Set the burner to medium-high heat. While that's heating up, place a metal bowl on top of the saucepan (or use a double burner if you have one) and in it combine the other 3/4 cup water and 4 tablespoons gelatin (left photo below). In a minute or two, the gelatin will look like the right photo below, kind of wrinkly.

2. While your sugar and gelatin mixtures are heating, start beating the 2 egg whites until the form soft peaks. I test for a soft peak by raising the beater and seeing if a peak forms, flops over a bit at the top and stays like that without disappearing.

3. When the gelatin mixture has liquified, remove it from the top of the sugar mixture which by now should be boiling. Keep the gelatin mixture near the burner to keep it warm and in liquid form. Measure the temperature of the sugar mixture with a candy thermometer until it reaches 250 to 265 degrees F (121 to 129 degrees C).

4. Once you've reached the desired temperature, remove the sugar from the heat and slowly pour the gelatin mixture into the boiling sugar (left photo below). It's going to expand quickly so be ready to stir it back down for a few seconds! Once the two are mixed, pour a slow steady stream into the egg whites while the beater(s) are on (right photo below).

5. Beat until semi-stiff peaks form. This will take at least a few minutes if not longer. When it's done it will slowly drip off the beater and form peaks in the bowl. It will be about the consistency of marshmallow cream.

6. Next you can stir in a teaspoon of your choice of extract plus a couple drops of food coloring. I gently swirled in the color with a spatula so my final marshmallows have both the color and white showing. Then pour the mixture into a 9x9 or 9x13 pan that has been greased and covered in powdered sugar. I used spray oil and a 9x9 pan that the mixture nearly filled completely. For not so thick marshmallows, use the 9x13 pan.

7. Let the marshmallows cool and stabilize for 4-6 hours then cover the top with powdered sugar and turn out of the pan onto wax paper.

8. Use kitchen shears or a knife to cut the block into individual marshmallows. Dip your scissors or knife into powdered sugar if it starts to stick. As you cut the marshmallows, roll them in powdered sugar.

9. Melt 1 1/4 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips over low heat on the stove or in the microwave. Line up all your marshmallows close together on wax paper and drizzle with chocolate. Then move them apart before the chocolate cools. Once the chocolate is cool they're ready to store in an air-tight container!

Easter Eggs and Bunny Cookies

My tutorials are usually more sewing based, but today's Easter themed post includes tips on fun Easter eggs plus a recipe for these no-bake bunny cookies (or buppins as my son calls them)! And if you need even more Easter inspiration such as a printable Easter mobile, Easter mazes, egg wraps and more, check out this post from We Love to Illustrate.

The Bunnies

These no-bake bunnies are much easier to make than cut-outs but still give you that cute Easter bunny look! If you're wanting to make these easier for kids to decorate, scroll to the bottom for some alternate decorating tips.

I used my standard no-bake cookie recipe for these with just a little extra oats. In a saucepan combine: 1 cup white sugar, 2 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder, 1/4 cup butter, 1/4 cup milk and 1/4 tsp. salt. Bring to a rolling boil (when it's boiling hard enough that when you stir it keeps boiling). When the rolling boil starts, start up your timer for one minute. When the minute is up, remove from heat and quickly stir in 1 3/4 cup quick cooking oats, 1/4 cup peanut butter and 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract. Use a spoon to quickly drop by teaspoonfulls onto wax paper.

You can double the recipe but it's hard to get them all done before they dry unless you've got some helpers! As soon as the cookies are on the wax paper, press two white chocolate chips into them for eyes with the flat side facing out. Press two slivered almonds into the tops for the ears. If they look like blank-eyed zombies then you're doing a great job.

Next, melt one block of almond bark white chocolate coating (that's the block in the lower right of the photo below) and mix in two drops of red food coloring. (You can also melt some of your white chocolate chips but I've never had good luck with them in the microwave, only on the stovetop on low heat.) Then spoon it into a ziploc bag. Twist the top so the chocolate is all firmly in the bottom corner. Then snip 1/8" off the corner. In the photo below I haven't twisted the bag yet. Make sure to twist it around several times so the chocolate doesn't go squishing everyone when you squeeze on the bag.

Start piping on the pink for the noses and ears.

Next, squeeze out the remaining pink chocolate back into the bowl and add food coloring to make it dark brown. I added 2 drops blue and 1 drop green but you may need more or less depending on your food colorings and chocolate. Spoon it into the unused corner of your ziploc bag, snip that corner and pipe on the eyes.

And now you have a cute little field of bunnies (ready to be eaten!).

Alternate decorating tips: Piping the melted chocolate will be too difficult for younger and some older kids. You can use jelly beans for the features by using black for the eyes and red or pink for the nose. Leave the ears just the plain almonds or cut a pink or red jellybean in half lengthwise and put it in front of the almond. Another option is to look for confetti sprinkles or something similar in the cake decorating aisle in your grocery store. After a few minutes, the white chocolate chips will melt and you can press the blue or purple sprinkles into the chips to make the eyes and add the pink ones for the noses. You can also use mini chocolate chips for the dark part of the eyes.

 

The Eggs

I've always enjoyed the tradition of dying eggs. Now that I'm doing it with my own son it's fun to think about combining different colors and learning how they all work together so you can make this project a bit educational too!

Start out by hard boiling the eggs. I prepared my dyes using a standard Paas egg dying kit and following the instructions to add together 1 tablet, 3 Tbsp. vinegar and 1/2 cup water. You can also make your own egg dye from food coloring using 1 tsp. vinegar, 20 drops coloring and 1/2 cup boiling water. You can find more information on the McCormick website.

Next, drizzle rubber cement over the eggs. On some I used the brush that comes in the bottle and on others I used a toothpick. Then I waited about 20 seconds and put each egg into a cup of dye. The rubber cement wasn't dry yet but I was impatient and figured most kids would be the same way! I let each egg sit a few minutes, pulled them all out and re drizzled with rubber cement. Back into the dyes a second time, then one more round of rubber cement and dying. Below you can see stages one, two and three.

Next, gently dry the eggs with a paper towel and rub off the rubber cement. The dyes weren't completely dry yet when I did it so they rubbed off a little with the rubber cement but I like the effect it gave the eggs. I don't recommend eating these eggs. The rubber cement is not non-toxic and the shell of an egg is porous so it's possible you could be ingesting some of it if you eat the egg. But they make a great decoration! Rather than hardboiling, you can also poke a hole about 1/8" in the top and bottom of the raw egg and blow the insides out then rinse. They're more fragile that way but you can also leave them out of the fridge for an unlimited amount of time!

And as a side note...the eggs below were the inspiration for the rubber cement eggs. I know, hard to tell! But, these are made in a similar way of covering over different colors and re-dying the eggs. I made these back in high school and college. They're a Ukranian art form called pysanky. Each egg is made using a tiny funnel filled with melted wax that you carefully draw onto the egg. Then, starting with the lightest color dye, you dye the egg, add more wax decorations, dye again and keep repeating untill you get to the darkest dye color, usually black. A little too involved for kids but it's so fun combining the different layers of colors! If you're interested in learning more or trying it yourself, I bought all of my supplies and how-to books from The Ukrainian Gift Shop.

Irish Cream Cheesecake

I don't normally share recipes but this one turned out so well I thought I'd let you all in on it! These two beauties are sitting on my kitchen counter right now and they look so good!! I used a recipe from Allrecipes for Irish Cream Cheesecake. Only changes I made were upping the Irish Cream from 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup. For the swirl on top, mix some of the cheesecake batter with chocolate syrup or cocoa powder. Put it in a Ziploc bag, cut 1/8" off a bottom corner and squeeze it like a frosting bag to make a spiral on the top. (I used straight chocolate syrup and that's why that area sunk a bit in my photo...oops.) Then, use a toothpick to make lines toward the center for the marbled pattern. I topped it with homeade whipped cream. If the raw batter is any indication, these are going to taste great!