Homemade Marshmallow

Homemade marshmallow's are so easy and quick. I wanted to post this before Easter but we had a family emergency and was not able to post it. But these melt great and would work for smores, rice crispy treats or you could cut them small for fruit salad. I've made these twice and have kind of tweaked it to work for us.

Ingredients:
Adapted from: littleaustinite.com
2 TBS of unflavored gelatin
2 1/2 cups of sugar *
1 cup chilled filtered water
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 tsp real vanilla or any flavoring you would like
1/4 cup powdered sugar**
1/4 cup tapioca starch or cornstarch


1. Chill bowl and whisk
2. Dissolve the gelatin into 1/2 cup of the chilled water. Let sit.
3. In a medium sauce pan add the rest of the chilled water, then the sugar and salt.
4. Cover and let boil for 3 min.
5. After 3 min put your thermometer into the mixture until is reaches 235-240 you want it at the soft ball stage. Don't let your thermometer touch the bottom of the pan. I don't have a candy thermometer so I used our digital one that goes up to 300 degrees.
6. Remove from heat when it has reached the right temp.
7. Get your mixing bowl out and put the gelatin mixture into the bowl
8. Slowly mix the sugar mixture into the gelatin ounce the sugar is added add the vanilla and raise the speed of your mixer slowly you don't want the sugar to splatter it's very HOT.
9. Keep mixing on a medium to high speed until it turns white and thick. It will look like meringue.***
10. While the marshmallow is mixing take a 9x13 pan and coat with butter.
11. Mix the tapioca starch and powdered sugar and coat the pan.
12. After the marshmallow is done pour it into the 9x13 pan and smooth it out.
13. Cover and let set at least 2 hours.
14. After it's set cut into squares or little shapes.
15. After you cut your marshmallows you are going to want to roll them in the same mixture you used for the pan. put into an air tight container for about a week.

* The first time I made these I used organic cane sugar. They turned out great and still mostly white. The second time I made these I used coconut sugar. These were good but different they had more of a maple taste and they were tan. Which didn't matter to me because I rolled them in toasted coconut.
** Instead of using powdered sugar I used ground up unsweetened coconut and mixed it with the tapioca starch it worked great and didn't add any flavor.
*** If you are making rice crispy treats just take the marshmallow from this stage and mix with your rice crispy's.