Whipped into existence from air and sugar, the marshmallow is a fairy-tale food that home cooks rarely attempt. And yet, Rachel Rappaport says, the confection "is the most magical thing you can make in the kitchen. From molten sugar to suddenly, it's just marshmallow!"
As the Lauraville resident with a widely read cooking blog called Coconut & Lime has discovered, marshmallows are also much simpler to make than their playfully spongy texture and commercially extruded pellet shape suggest.
The old-fashioned confection also holds up to a surprising array of stylish flavors and uses, placing it beside cupcakes in the pantheon of nostalgic foods reinvented for artisanal tastes.
"Marshmallows take us back to our childhood," says Eileen Talanian, author of the new book Marshmallows: Homemade Gourmet Treats. "So here's a way to have them, but also have them in adult form," says the author, referring to recipes for marshmallows flavored with fresh lemon, cardamom, raspberry puree, champagne and other sophisticated ingredients.
Easter, which arrives on Sunday, marks peak marshmallow season, when millions of Just Born Peeps chicks and Kraft BunnyMallows nestle into cellophane grass in anticipation of spring. For those who prefer marshmallows with a European provenance, there are pink and yellow Williams-Sonoma Marshmallow Ducklings from Spain.
More than a dozen domestic mail-order companies specializing in hand-cut marshmallows feature their own seasonal, yet less traditional, offerings. "We've got really fun fruit flavors that come out for Easter," says Ann Hickey, owner of Plush Puffs, an all-natural marshmallow concern in Sherman Oaks, Calif. "Key Lime Sublime, Luscious Lemony Meringue and our RazzVeryBerry - those are great flavors for Easter."
Easter "is a big season," says Suzanne Lombardi, co-owner of Tiny Trapeze Confections, a Boston-based company that makes all-natural marshmallows for Whole Foods. For the spring holiday, Lombardi's company produces a Clearly Coconut marshmallow, flavored with coconut and rolled in organic, toasted coconut, as well as six-packets of pastel-hued Hippity Hop Mallows dipped in milk chocolate. Tiny Trapeze's specialty products aren't distributed in Maryland, although its Whole Foods-branded marshmallows are sold locally.
