Maple Marshmallows.

Ever since I first had the idea, I've wanted to try maple marshmallows.  If you can make candy out of maple sugar, why can't you make marshmallows?  Think of how good they'd be roasted over a fire.  I'm drooling already.

In the same manner as I did the regular marshmallows, I mixed together in the bowl of my mixer:

1/2 cup water

3 packages plain gelatin

into a small pot went

2 cups sugar

2/3 cup maple syrup

I deliberately left out the water when I saw how runny maple syrup was in comparison to honey or corn syrup.  That may have been the cause of the problem I encountered later.

I brought the mixture to a boil and once it passed 250ºF I pulled it off the heat intending to carefully and slowly stream it into the mixer that was now beating the gelatin and water.

Wrong.

It was lumpy, and clumpy and I used more of a slow dumping method.  I'm guessing putting the water in might have helped stabilize it a bit.

Once it was all in the mixer I ended up with this:

I had low hopes for my marshmallows turning out.  As they whipped I was slowly heartened and began to believe that marshmallows are hard to screw up.  They looked just like the marshmallows I made before!  Albeit, there was a LOT of sugar caked to the sides of the bowl that should have been in the mixture, but I could handle that on clean-up.  I got the mix into my greased-and-icing-sugared 9x9 pan (since I wanted them bigger for roasting), and it looked very much the same. 

Once I tried it, though, I did notice some hard sugary bits mixed through.  Whether they were from the sides of the bowl, or just didn't mix through completely I don't know for sure.  Either way, I could likely convince people they were intentional, right?  You'll keep my secret, right?

Of course, I couldn't resist sampling.  YUM!  It tasted so much like roasted marshmallows without being roasted.  I can't wait to get these babies onto sticks and over a fire!

I think cleanup can wait.  I'll get the matches!