July 4th Bake-travaganza!

Okay so we have been derelicht in sharing what Emily and I did on July 4th with you all. Of course this is partially due to exhaustion (and a bit of a hangover on my part) but nonetheless we made some really cool dishes that we should share! That said, the recipes are at my parents house in PA and I can’t recall the names off the top of my head let alone the ingredients

We started by heading to the Landcaster County Farmer’s Market, which is amazing. I’ve been going there with my dad ever since I was a kid. We usually go before special occasions like Thanksgiving or when family visits. It has spoiled me for grocery shopping anywhere else! The meat and produce are beautiful… but the candy counter (with old fashioned rock candy) holds a special place in my heart <3

TBC…

Okay, so a month later and I still never finished writing this up. I wish I could remember exactly what dishes we made, but we had chosen things that we’ve never done before from a Mexican cook book my parents had. Both were slow roasted dishes; one lamb and one pork. The pork one was delicious while the lamb one somehow made everyone sick … My favorite part of the pork dish was actually the sandwich we had the next day!

Liberal use of food processor. Man that thing sucks to clean!

We also made a red velvet cake. Okay, so Emily made most of it, but I snapped a few pictures I’ve always loved the idea of red velvet cake, but every time I’ve tasted some it never tastes the way I feel it was supposed to. I mean in theory it sounds like the perfect cake, but everyone seems to change it by adding things like butter cream or cinnamon. So we decided to find a traditional recipe and make a real red velvet cake:

This is the way vanilla should look!

Pain D’epices

Breathing is awkward right now because every third intake of breathe is a deep inhalation of the pervasive scent of cloves, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, honey, and orange peel. Oh, wow, the smell is sooooo good. I just finished baking Pain d’Epices, recipe courtesy of Wild Yeast (http://www.wildyeastblog.com) with a few modifications to reflect the traditional French recipe from the Alsace region (omitting the aniseed because I was too lazy to grind it up):

8×4 pan
1/2 c all-purpose flour
1/2 c whole wheat flour
1/2 c rye flour
1 t cinnamon
1 t ginger
1/2 t cloves
1/2 t nutmeg
2.5 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1 c 3 t water
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c honey
1.5 t orange zest

1. Preheat oven to 375F, with rack in the center.
2. Butter a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.
3. Sift together the flour, anise, mustard, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt.
4. In a medium saucepan, combine water and sugar. Place over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved and the syrup comes to a simmer.
5. Remove from the heat and stir in the honey and orange zest.
6. Sift half the dry ingredients mixture into the syrup, 1/4 cup at a time, whisking to combine after each addition. Sift in the remaining dry ingredients, again 1/4 cup at a time; fold in each addition with a spatula.
7. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about an hour, until a toothpick inserted in the loaf comes out clean.
8. Cool on a wire rack in the pan for 10 minutes; then de-pan the bread and cool completely before wrapping in foil.
9. Age for a day or two before serving (or not).

Next time, I’d reduce the heat to 350 and bake it for 1.25 hours~

Light Apple Cake

I took a pear bundt cake recipe from BakingBites, and altered it for apples!  I also cut out 1/2 c of sugar, and replaced some of the white sugar with a 1/4 c of brown sugar.  I increased the amount of cinnamon and nutmeg, and used 1 t vanilla and 1 t almond extract.  I’m rewriting the recipe with my alterations – and I would use 1/2 c less of chopped apple because this cake is hard to cut since it is not very stable!  See below.

Light Apple Cake

3 1/4 c flour (half whole wheat)

2 t baking powder

1 t baking soda

1/2 t salt

1 t nutmeg

1 T cinnamon

1 1/4 c white sugar

1/4 c brown sugar

1/4 c butter

2 eggs

1/2 c applesauce

1 t vanilla, 1 t almond extract

1 c milk

1.5 c peeled and diced apples.

Preheat oven to 350.  Grease the bundt pan VERY well as bundt cakes tend to stick.  Whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and spices.  In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar until fluffy, or near fluffy.  Beat in the eggs one at a time.  Slowly, beat in the applesauce and extract.  Adding in alternate portions, add the milk and the flour mixture to the wet mixture.  Stir in the diced apples.  For effect, I placed almonds in the bottom of my bundt pan before pouring the batter in.  Baking for 60 – 65 minutes.  Let cool in pan for 15 mins, before turning out onto a rack to cool.

New Year’s Weekend

4 day weekend + new Kitchenaid Mixer + Mastering the Art of French Cooking volumes 1 and 2 = lots of cooking!

Last night, when pondering what to do with the remaining 3 hours of my day, I asked Paul what he would like to eat.  Vanilla pudding, was the reply.  So I turned to MTAOFC.  Pudding does not exist in French cuisine.  What does exist are Creme Anglaise, Creme Patisserie, and Creme Mousseline.

Therefore, I made Creme Patisserie and used a butter enrichment to create the thickest of the cremes, Creme Mousseline.  I followed the guidelines in our Le Cordon Bleu book, because I could more easily halve the ingredients in that recipe as opposed to MTAOFC.  Results?  It worked!  I did not curdle the eggs – yay!  It tasted good, but the Le Cordon Bleu recipe called for too much flour and cornstarch.  They are added as a stabalizer and thus make the recipe more fool-proof, however you could definitely taste them in the texture.  Next time, I will have more eggs on hand and try the Julia Child recipe.

Also this morning, I decided to prepare a brown stock.  It smells heavenly and has 1 hour left to go!  I roasted carrots, onions, and the beef soup bones I purchased from the grocery store.  Roasting is how you achieve the “brown” in brown stock.  Then, I put them into a pot with some frozen leftover celery I had saved for stock making and filled the pot with water to 1 inch over the top of the beef bones.  I added some pepper, salt, thyme, parsley, and a large bay leaf.  Simmer 4 – 5 hours, refrigerate, skim, and wallah.

Because I had 3 egg whites leftover, I decided to attempt an egg white souffle.  I have never tried a regular souffle…much less an egg white souffle, but I figured – what the heck!  I followed MTAOFC’s recipe for Cheese Egg White Souffle.  I had to use milk instead of light cream.  I think that a replacement of heavy cream with milk would go poorly, but there isn’t as much milk fat in light cream.

The souffle base made me nervous because it was so thick…so I added some milk.  I think this was a good call, given the results.  I was very worried that it would not rise in the pyrex dish as souffles are traditionally made in charlotte pans.  But, the cookbook does say that most American cooks use the pyrex dishes as charlotte molds are hard to find.  Results?  It actually rose!  I was so excited when it turned out the way it was supposed to!  Good flavor, fluffy, and light on the calories due to the egg whites.  Next time I would add a vegetable, perhaps spinach?  I could have today but I wanted to make sure I could MAKE one before I tried variations.

I have tried a few other recipes for sticky buns and cinnamon rolls, but none of the cinnamon rolls yielded a strong enough dough to get good fluffy rolls.  And, most of the sticky bun recipes call for WAY too much butter for me to be comfortable with.  So, I tried a recipe from my Aunt Carol that was in the lovely cookbook my mom gave me as a Christmas gift.  It was your basic egg sweet dough, with the cinnamon roll preparation.  It worked perfectly and was a great New Year’s Day breakfast!

I’m going to cheat and paste the picture of the recipe my mom typed out for me

I altered this to fit most dough recipes and “proofed” the yeast using 1 T yeast to 1/4 c warm water with 1 t sugar.  I combined all of the ingredients except the egg and flour, in the pan to scald the milk.  I added all of the liquids/sugar/salt and then 1/2 c flour before adding to egg to ensure that I did not COOK the egg in the warm liquids.  I used my stand mixer with the dough attachment and added 1/2 c of flour at a time, using 1 c white flour and the rest whole wheat flour.  I rolled out the dough after the first rise and used a mixture of 1 T butter and 2 T heavy cream on the dough, then liberally sprinkled cinnamon, brown sugar, and walnuts, and rolled up the dough to cut it.  I used my new springform pan as I thought it would yield the best high rising results due to the high sides.  I had leftover dough so I put it in a bread pan to bake up separately.  I frosted them with a cream cheese/cream/powdered sugar mix.  All the heavy cream use is because I have a quart I need to use up, and after making caramel sauce last night I still have half of it left!

Cranberries and Thanksgiving

Living in Massachusetts, one has easy access to oodles of cranberries during the Thanksgiving season.  Because of this, I decided to whip up two different cranberry recipes in addition to a cranberry sauce for the turkey on Thanksgiving Day.

The sauce was great, and easy!  Make a simple syrup, add cranberries and cook until they burst, add some orange zest and cinnamon and chill.  Wallah!  Granted, I was the only one who likes cranberries and so I ate a lot of it myself   In addition to the homemade sauce, I also made a chocolate marble swirl cheesecake from scratch.  I mean from scratch.  I made my own chocolate graham crackers to crush for the crust, and then made a cream cheese/ricotta base for the cheesecake, and melted Valhrona chocolate for the swirl.  It was delicious.  I was very happy to get compliments from Paul’s dad, too!

Now, on to the items I baked “on the side” during cranberry season…

First, cranberry/cherry scones.  I found this recipe on the Joy of Baking website (http://www.joyofbaking.com).  They have amazing pictures.  I picked up some oat flour on sale at Whole Foods and so I thought this would be a good way to utilize some of it.  I replaced 1/2 c of white flour with 1/2 c of the oat flour.  I als0 replaced 1/2 c of white flour with 1/2 c of whole wheat flour.

(recipe copied from the website, with my alterations)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup oat flour

1 cup white flour

1/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/3 cup white sugar (half demerara if available)

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold and cut into small pieces

3/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

1/3 cup fresh cranberries, chopped

1/4 cup dried cherries

Zest of one half orange

2/3 cup buttermilk

Egg Wash:

1 large egg

1 tablespoon milk

Topping:

Powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and place rack in center of oven.

In a large bowl place the flours, sugar, salt, baking soda, baking powder and whisk to combine.  Add the butter and using your fingers, cut in the butter until it resembles coarse crumbs.  Add the rolled oats, cranberries, cherries, and zest.  Mix until combined. Stir in the buttermilk (adding more buttermilk if necessary) and mix just until the dough comes together.

Transfer to a lightly floured surface and attempt to knead the dough four or five times and then pat, or roll, the dough into a circle that is 7 inches (18 cm) round and about 11/2 inches thick.  Cut this circle into 8 triangular sections (note, I cut mine into 16).  Place the scones on the baking sheet. Make an egg wash of one beaten egg mixed with 1 tablespoon milk or cream and brush the tops of the scones with this mixture.

Bake for about 15 – 18 minutes or until lightly browned and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.   Remove from oven and then turn your broiler on high.  Sift confectioners (powdered or icing) sugar heavily over the tops of the scones and place them under the broiler.  Broil for just a few seconds, turning the pan as necessary, until the sugar has melted and turns golden brown.  Make sure to watch the scones carefully as the sugar will burn very quickly.   Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Makes 8 large scones

Cranberry Scone side view!

Results?  I would omit the dried cherries, I threw them in on a whim but the texture was unnecessary with the fresh cranberries.  I would also omit the broiler and powdered sugar part and just put powdered sugar on the top at the beginning of the baking process!  I hate using the broiler, it just makes me nervous and it did not add much, in my opinion.  All in all, a great scone recipe, they were delicious and the oat flour REALLY made a difference in the tenderness of the crumb.

Cranberry Shortbread, also from Joy of Baking:

Ingredients:

Cranberry Filling:

8 ounces fresh cranberries

2/3 cup granulated white sugar

3 T water

Shortbread Bars:

2 cups all purpose flour

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup unsalted butter

1/3 cup light brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Cranberry Shortbread Bars: Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) and place the wire oven rack in the center of the oven. Butter (or spray with a non stick cooking spray) a 9 x 9 inch (23 x 23 cm) pan.

Cranberry Filling: In a medium sized saucepan, place all the ingredients. Then, over medium-high heat, cook the ingredients until boiling. Continue to boil the filling until it becomes thick and syrupy, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool while you make the shortbread.

Shortbreads: In a separate bowl whisk the flour, cornstarch, and salt.

In the bowl of your electric mixer cream the butter until smooth (about 1 minute). Add the sugar and beat until smooth (about 2 minutes). Beat in the vanilla. Gently stir in the flour mixture just until incorporated.

Evenly press two-thirds of the shortbread into the bottom of the prepared pan. Then evenly spread the cranberry filling over the shortbread base, leaving a 1/4 inch border.

With the remaining shortbread dough, using your fingers, crumble it over the top of the cranberry filling. Then lightly press the dough into the filling.

Bake in the preheated oven for about 30 minutes, or until golden brown on top. Remove from oven, place on a wire rack, and while still hot, cut into 16 squares. Allow to cool completely in pan.

Makes about 16 bars.

Results?  A WASTE OF BUTTER.  These were dry and too buttery for their own good.  Yes, too buttery.  I would have been better off saving the butter for more scones and the cranberries for other delights I was thinking of making, such as cranberry clafoutis.  Blech.  Don’t bother with these bars!  Although the pictures are pretty, I pawned them all off on my coworkers.  They liked them, or so they said…but I thought they were terrible.  Waste of butter, really.

Plum Jam

What does one do when the half peck of plums one has purchased from the market…are half rotten?  Cut out the rotten bits and throw the rest into jam!

My mom had two plum trees from my grandmother.  When they produced, she made plum jam.  It was heavenly.  The little pieces of plum skin were delicious on toast.  One year, the plum trees developed a fungus and died.  No more plum jam.  I was able to buy these same plums at the farmer’s market this Saturday.  I had not intended on making jam…but a jam opportunity presented itself.

I used a recipe found on http://www.epicurious.com, and modified it.

Plum Jam:
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1/2 t vanilla
1/2 lb of ripe plums (or whatever amount I had!)

Stir sugar and water in heavy medium saucepan over medium-high heat until sugar dissolves.  Bring to boil. Place candy thermometer into mixture so that bulb is submerged.  Boil until thermometer registers 260°F.  Remove pan from heat and add plums to pan, CAREFULLY.  Stir mixture constantly over high heat until plums are broken up, spoon leaves path when drawn across bottom of pan, and mixture is reduced.  Transfer to metal or glass container. Press plastic wrap directly on surface of jam and refrigerate until cool.

I cannot wait to slather it on my english muffins!!

~ Emily

Eggs Benedict – From The Top

I have been adventuring through Julia Child’s cookbooks lately.  I have read Julia and Julie – which was very entertaining.  I borrowed one of Julia’s cookbooks from the library last month, and another one with Jacques Pepin this month.  I am currently reading a book of hers about her experience in France when she was writing Mastering the Art of French cooking.

This, inevitably, has led to a fascination with sauces and eggs.  My husband made an attempt at a hollandaise sauce a few weeks back.  It was good, but it separated.  This morning, I shall attempt again.

I plan to make Eggs Benedict for breakfast this morning.

How does someone who makes all things from scratch, start to create Eggs Benedict?  By making the 1. English Muffins, of course.  I am making a half batch using this recipe.  Note: the most important thing I have learned about yeast baking is that 1 package of yeast = 1T of bulk yeast.  NOT 2 1/4 t as the package would lead one to believe.

Moving on…my dough has been rising for an hour, and so now I must punch it down and cut it into rounds, and then let it rest for 30 mins.  A double rise usually takes 1 hour, then half the time to double during the second rise.  Note: my book, Beard on Bread, is in at Barnes and Nobles!!!  I am overjoyed to pick it up today!

…muffins done!  I set them aside on a rack while I cooked the rest of the items.

2. Ham – from the local meat market, heat in pan on both sides…done, set aside.

3. Poached Eggs – using Jacques Pepin’s recipe:
1″ of water in a 8-10″ frying pan
2 T white vinegar

Bring to a slow boil.  Crack in eggs as close to the water as possible.  After 1 minute of cooking, gently move the egg around a bit so that it does not stick in the pan.  Cook for 4-6 minutes depending on how done you like your eggs!  Lift out with a slotted spoon and place in a bowl of warm water to rinse the vinegar off.  Set on paper towels to dry.

4. Hollandaise Sauce – I halved Julia Child’s recipe:
1.5 egg yolks
1 1/2 t lemon juice
1 1/2 t water

3-4 oz of butter

white pepper, black pepper, salt, cayenne pepper

Mix water, lemon juice, and egg yolks thoroughly with a good whisk in a small sauce pan.  Combine well.  Cook over low heat, constantly stirring with the whisk, especially around the edges and middle of the pan.  Continue whisking over low heat until you reach a stage where drawing the whisk through the pan leaves streaks, or open places where you can see the pan briefly.  The sauce should be a bit thick.  If you find the eggs cooking too quickly, remove from heat and continue whisking, then return to heat.  I removed it quite often as I was very afraid of scrambling the eggs!  Have a bowl of ice water ready if you need to stop the cooking process quickly.  Note: I never used the ice water.  Once the eggs are to the whisk/drawing point described above, remove from heat entirely.  Add a teaspoon of room temperature, softened butter, to the mixture.  Constantly whisk until the butter is completely incorporated.  Slowly add pieces of butter, one at a time, fully incorporating before adding the next piece, until you have the consistency you desire.  I found about 2 oz of butter to work for me.  Now, add white pepper, black pepper, and salt to taste.  Add a pinch of cayenne pepper.  Wallah, done!

Now, assembly!  Unfortunately, unless you have uber skills or a heat lamp, by this time one of your items has gone luke warm.  I split and toasted my English Muffins, placed the ham on it, placed the egg on top of the ham, and reheated it for 30 seconds in the microwave.  Then, I scooped a bit of hollandaise on top as the hollandaise sauce was the last item to finish and should still be warm.

The verdict?  I’m so damn proud of myself!  The hollandaise actually, really, turned out correctly!!!  I was shaking by the end of it because I was so scared of screwing it up, but I made it!  The English Muffins were quite easy, except that I feel the cooking time should be adjusted.  Keep it on medium low heat, and be careful not to brown the bottoms until the heat has cooked the middle of the muffin.  This part was tricky.  Cooking time will definitely depend on the thickness of your muffins.  I rolled out the dough too thin and cut the dough using a glass…and then put it all back together, rolled the dough out thicker, and cut them again.  I think the thickness that they ended up with was good – but I did need to lower the griddle’s heat in order to achieve thorough cooking of the dough.  The ham – a cinch, obviously.  The eggs – the vinegar really worked to hold the whites together, and 6 minutes cooking time yielded a semi-solid yolk.  Easy.  The hollandaise – the recipe is solid and the process was a success.  It is intimidating, but it is doable!  On to the pictures…

The stove top, with lots of dishes!

Hollandaise Sauce

English Muffins – Finished and resting, and drying the eggs

Eggs Benedict – Completed!

Completed Eggs Benedict – side view!

~ Emily

Dark Molasses Coffee Cake, Pumpkin Pie Brownies, Apple Hermits

I deeply and sincerely apologize for stepping away from the blog for so long!  In the time that I have been away…I have likely baked 20 different recipes.  I bake obsessively.  Why?  Because I freaking love it.  I bake, and I cook, and I love the time that it takes to build things from the raw elements of flour, water, and sugar.

Work has been crazy.  I usually come in at 7:30am and leave at 5:30pm.  Typically I do not leave for lunch.  Oye.  The money is good – and I get recognized a lot for my hard work – so I will not complain.

This morning, I am writing while my english muffin dough rises.  That post shall be next!

Earlier this week it was boss’s day.  As a co-worker and my husband both said, “isn’t every day boss’s day?”  Congratulations, boss, you have higher power and prestige than I do!  So yes, every day is boss’s day.  But this “holiday” gives me an excuse to bake.  I made a half a batch of Vegan Pumpkin Pie Brownies , a half a batch of Apple Hermits, and Dark Molasses Coffee Cake.  All very fall flavors.  Results?

1.

picture courtesy of vegan cupcakes

The Vegan Pumpkin Brownies I made gluten-free by using brown rice flour.  We have one co-worker with celiac disease and I thought it would be nice to do.  Well, I should have looked further into gluten-free baking because you cannot truely just replace the flour.  I should have used twice the amount of brown rice flour, to replace the amount of regular flour.  Also, a half batch of brownies only works well if you have a half sized pan.  Pouring a half size of brownies into a full sized 8 x 8 or 9 x 9 pan does not yield nice brownies.  I ended up with pumpkin/chocolate goo which did solidify in the refrigerator and after much fussy baking.  Next time, regular flour or twice the amount of brown rice flour, and dammit make a FULL batch!  I made half a batch because I had half a can of pumpkin leftover from my Pumpkin and Almond Pancakes…

2.

picture courtesy of All Recipes

Apple Hermits.  Again, I thought I could replace some of the whole wheat (ww) flour with graham flour to make it more nubbly and nutricious.  Sure, but then I need to double the graham flour as it does not hold up quite so well.  This recipe instructs me to whip the eggs.  Whip the eggs to what level?  I whipped them into a froth, assuming that we were going for a leavening effect.  This worked out alright, but with the great amount of butter and lack of flour I ended up with a soupier cookie than intended.  The glaze was not worth it and made them look very strange…next time, I would make larger, flatter cookies, using more graham flour or only using ww flour, and THEN use the glaze.  Delicious cookies.  I omitted the walnuts as I did not have any on hand.  I think they would have benefitted from the nuts.

3.

picture courtesy of Baking Bites

Dark Molasses Coffee Cake.  I made this in the morning at 5:45am before work, because I felt that the cookies and sad brownies were not enough food.  I was wrong, of course, but I made this anyways!  This coffee cake is fabulous IF you like molasses.  IF not, then steer clear.  Next time I would use 1/4 c honey to replace some of the molasses and tone down the flavor.  I would also add more baking powder as this is a very dense cake.  I substituted the egg for 1 T ground flaxseed mixed with 3 T water (let sit 5 mins+ until it gels).  I also used instant oatmeal on the topping as I was out of regular oatmeal   This coffee cake was delicious.  It needs a tiny amount of fine tuning to be perfection for those of us who love molasses.

Co-workers enjoyed, although I think that they would like me to cook something normal with chocolate every once in awhile!  Bleh!  I’d rather stick to fruity baking.  And now, on to the English Muffins…

~ Emily

Key Lime Marshmallows

I had leftover key limes from making key lime mini “pies” last week and so when my partner in crime challenged me to a marshmallow dual, I figured hey, why not use up these leftover fruits!

Holy wow.  Do you remember warhead candies?  These are similar to the exterior of those.  While the marshmallow technique was good, and so was the recipe (we both ended up using Nightscotsman’s recipe, but I halved it and found a modified version)…I would not use any citrus PULP to make marshmallows.  They ended up with little chewy bits in them from the citrus “skin” (not the rind or pith but the inside!).  Next time, I would venture to use citrus JUICE if I want citrus flavored mallows!  My husband made a face after eating some of the mallow fluff and said…well, you should experiment like this.  Heh.  All in all, a good experiment, indeed.

Equipment:

asst. measuring spoons and cups

1 8 x 8 pan

parchment paper, wax paper, or foil

1 medium large mixing bowl

1 pot

2 oven mitts

1 well oiled spatula

1 wooden spoon

1 hand mixer with whisk attachments or a Kitchen aid mixer

1 blender/food processor

Recipe:

• 2 Gelatin Envelopes
• 1/4 c water
• 1/4 c fruit puree
• 1/2 t vanilla extract

• 1.5 c sugar
• 1/2 c + 2 T water
• 1/2 c + 2 T corn syrup
• 1/4 t salt
• 10 drops neon green food coloring

• 1/4 c rice flour
• 1/4 c powdered sugar

1. Line a 8 x 8 inch pan with parchment paper.  I cut 2 inch slits into the corners so that I could fold the wax paper and cover the sides of the pan as well as the bottom.  Then, spray the sides and bottom with non-stick spray, liberally!
2. Peel the key limes (this is very difficult to do, I found the best method was to cut both the top and bottom off of the lime, position it so that it sits flat on the counter top, and carefully slice down each side trying to take off as little of the fruit as possible!).  It takes about 10 key limes to equal a 1/4 c of fruit puree.  Blend in the blender on “puree” mode.  Scoop out any seeds or large pieces of tough skin.
3. In a medium large mixer bowl, combine the puree and the first measure of water.  Sprinkle the gelatin over the mixture and gently incorporate.
4. Add the sugar, salt, corn syrup, and second measure of water to a pot, preferably with handles.  (Unfortunately, I ran out of white sugar and had to use 1/2 c of brown sugar.  From what I read this makes for a light caramel flavor in the marshmallows although with the strong taste of key lime I could not tell!  It might make for delicious butterscotch marshmallows.)  Bring to a boil with the lid on.
5. Remove the lid and heat up to soft ball stage, roughly between 235 and 240 degrees Fahrenheit.  Stir every few seconds with a wooden spoon.  Do not worry about getting sugar hardened or stuck to anything – it WILL come out with hot water, I promise!  I did not believe it either but it does
6. “They” do not recommend using a hand mixer because people have blown out their motors and it IS quite difficult to hold a mixer and pour boiling liquid.  I saw pshaw.  I am not waiting to transport my Kitchen aid mixer from my mother-in-law’s house before I make marshmallows!  However, if you choose to use a hand mixer I would recommend taking these precautions beforehand: 1. Plug in your hand mixer with WHISK attachments.  Use the splash guard/paddle if you have the attachment – luckily, I do.  2. Pull out your trusty oven mitts and lay them nearby for easy use.  3. Have a well oiled spatula laying nearby for easy use.
7. When your candy thermometer reaches the correct temperature, remove the pot from the burner.  Quickly place the oven mitts on your delicate hands to cover/protect hands and arms from splash burns.  Position beater directly over the bowl of gelatin mix.  While the mixer is hovering a few inches from limey goodness, flip the switch to the lowest setting.  Then, using your free hand hoist up the steaming pot of candy goodness.  Slowly, very slowly, pour the hot liquid down the inside of the mixing bowl OPPOSITE from the side you are holding the beaters on.  Lower the beaters into the mixture.  Pour until all of the candy mix is inside of the bowl.  Slowly (again), turn the beaters up until they are on high without splashing.  Beat for 8 – 10 minutes.  Because people warned against motor burn out – I shut off my beaters after 5 minutes, and brought them to low and high about 3 times to give the motor a break.
8. Just at the 5 minute mark, the mallow begins to thicken.  Add the food coloring now!
9. Whip the remaining time if necessary.  You are looking for a very fluffy mix and something that is a bit hard to beat.
10. Then, pour the mixture into the awaiting pan.  If you need to you can use the pre-oiled spatula to smooth the mixture although I found that this was unnecessary.
11. Let the marshmallow sit uncovered for 10 to 12 hours.  I let mine sit over night.
12. Mix equal parts powdered sugar and flour and sprinkle over the top of the marshmallow.
13. Turn out the mallow onto a cutting board and peel off the foil/wax paper.
14. Slice.  With what?  Good question.  A serrated knife did not work so well.  An oiled serrated knife also did not work so well.  I am going to try dental floss next time, and I hear that guitar strings and fishing line work EXCELLENTLY.
15. Roll the sticky edges into the flour/sugar mixture.
16. Store in an airtight container for several weeks.
17. Enjoy the fluffy goodness.

Will post pics later!  I want to try cinnamon cocoa marshmallows next

~Em