Here is a simple recipe for making lots of great marshmallow crème at home. Why make it? The cost is far less and the quality much better than commercial stuff. It was quite difficult finding this recipe on the Internet … I had to go to the third or fourth Google® page of web sites to find one that wasn’t simply trying to sell the finished product! So, tell me why the retailers web sites are shown first even though my search specifically included the word "recipe?" Hmmm …

Ingredients: (makes approximately two quarts)

3 egg whites

2 cups of light corn syrup

½ tsp. of Salt

2 cups of confectioner’s sugar

1 tbsp. of Vanilla extract (or other flavor extract like coconut)

Directions:

Combine egg whites, corn syrup and salt in a large mixer bowl. Mix for a full ten minutes, first on medium speed for one minute, then at a higher speed. After ten minutes the mixture should look like marshmallow crème. Keep mixing and add the vanilla. Then reduce the speed and gradually add the confectioner’s sugar and then mix at a high speed for one or two minutes, or longer.

The actual volume of marshmallow crème that you get will depend on how long you beat it at high speed, for some air is incorporated and the longer you beat the product the more air you will get. Thus, the final volume can vary from 1½ to 2½ quarts.

Spoon the marshmallow crème into one quart canning jars, tighten the lids and refrigerate. I use a wide mouth canning jar funnel to keep the marshmallow crème away from the top of the canning jar while I am filling it.

The marshmallow crème is great on sundaes or in making ice cream, smoors, etc. It will keep well in your refrigerator for more than a month. Eventually some of the corn syrup will collect at the bottom of the jar … you can still use the product but I recommend making a fresh batch for optimum quality.

I indicated in the recipe above the idea that you can use flavors other than vanilla when making marshmallow crème. Here is an example: I decided to clone the commercial product, Mallo Cups®. To do that I needed the final candy to have a nice coconut flavor overtone. It was quite simple to buy a coconut flavor concentrate from OliveNation.com and use a 1 tablespoons of it in the above recipe instead of vanilla. It was delicious and a perfect way to avoid introducing any liquid agent into the chocolate that might harm the texture. I did, of course, use some freshly ground coconut in the melted chocolate dispensed on the top of my Mallo Cup® clones. Yummy!

As you will see when you read my ice cream recipes, I use the marshmallow crème in two of them, and it is perfect for that use.

è Your local supermarket will charge between $2.50 to $3.00 for a pint container of light Karo® syrup, which was the corn syrup I used to use to make this recipe and my recipe for butterscotch candy. Then I saw light corn syrup at Fisher’s Country Store® and the price was $4.84 for a half gallon! Later I saw a gallon size in a restaurant supply store for about $9. And the quality of both larger sizes was excellent. Need I say more?