you'd think i have too much time on my hands.

Yes my friends, that would be a homemade marshmallow in the shape of a wonky acorn. (cause I'm sure that was your first guess, right?) Yes... it's the sort of thing you decide to tackle after making promises to your child (the same child that has the memory of an elephant) while distracted by some incredible photostreams on flickr...oops...

After a quick google search I decided on this recipe because it's the only one that didn't require a candy thermometer. (I believe candy thermometers are evil stress inducing devices and avoid them at almost any cost...)


I decided to forgo the corn syrup and ended up substituting it for brown rice syrup. I combined that with the sugar and water and let it come to a boil on the stove while the gelatin and water mingled in the mixer. The tot was ever so helpful in giving me the moment by moment "bubble status" updates.

When the syrup had "boiled hard" for one minute, we poured it into the mixer, added the salt, and started beating the mixture on high.

You'll have some time to kill (approximately 12 minutes.) It's a good time to break for smooches and silly faces.

Once the mixture had developed into fluff, we added our vanilla extract, gave the mixture another minute in the mixer to combine it all, and then scooped it out onto a baking dish that had been covered with plastic wrap and lightly oiled. We covered the top with an oiled layer of plastic wrap as well to seal out the air. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP! If you do, all of your previous work will have been in vein. Let the glob of syrup and gelatin set up for a few hours. Once it has, you can either take the whole thing out and cut it up into squares, or you can do what we did and use little cookie cutters to stamp out various shapes. We chose leaves and acorns in the spirit of the season. In a separate bowl, we mixed together equal parts of cornstarch and powdered sugar and then individually powder the marshmallows. And.....

Voilà!

mmmmmmmm.......