Marshmallow Poops

What is Easter without Marshmallow Peeps, those cute little sugary birds? I've been pretty excited to try my hand at this top secret recipe. (The Just Born factory that Peeps are made only lets a select few people into the candy-making area, & even fewer people get to see the special machine that forms these iconic birds!)

I adopted some "special" Peeps from HyVee...sad eyes :(
They still taste good though!!

Let me just preface this recipe and say it's not for those that like to keep a clean kitchen. This was quite possibly the stickiest, messiest, yet funnest candy I've made. This is still marshmallow on my counter and I made these 2 days ago!Here's the recipe:


Marshmallow Chicks


2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups water
1 Tbsp light corn syrup
4 Tbsp unflavored gelatin (5 packets)
1 tsp vanilla flavoring
1 cup sugar crystals

1. Line a baking sheet with wax paper and sprinke on a thin layer of sugar.


2. In a saucepan, dissolve the sugar into 1 cup water and corn syrup. Stir until completely dissolved, then bring to a boil without stirring. Continue cooking mixture until it reaches 260 degrees, (hard ball stage). This will take awhile--be patient!


3. Meanwhile, combine 3/4 cup water with gelatin and stir to dissolve. You don't want it to become spongy, so you can microwave it to keep it in liquid form.

You DON'T want your gelatin to look
like this, it should be liquid

4. Once your sugar mixture reaches hard ball stage, remove from heat and add liquid gelatin mixture. Pour the mixture into a large mixing bowl.


5. Mix on high speed (with a wisk beater if you have one) for about 5 minutes or until mixture thickens. Add vanilla flavoring.


6. Pour mixture into a large icing bag.

Dissolved sugar (with some black flecks from my pan...oops!!)

Almost to hard ball stage, about 6 minutes of boiling. 

After liquid gelatin was swirled in

Starting to "wisk" the batter, all I had was a mixer,
it seemed to work though :)

Fluffy marshmallow!!

The next part was messy, messy, messy!! I needed about 5 hands, and only have two so no pictures were taken during the comical transfer from bowl to bag to pan, but here's some pictures of the aftermath:

Marshmallow everywhere!! 

Yes, this is my floor. I tried to pour the batter into the bag
 while holding the bowl in between my knees
while some peeps escaped out the bottom of the bag onto the floor.

Not sure if I was squeezing more out of the bag, or onto my hands! 

STUCK.

I got attacked by the marshmallow man!

Final product. the first ones were obviously too runny to shape (they do look like eggs though!) and the last two I could barely squeeze out of the bag, so they do literally look like marshmallow poops!! Haha, what a fun project though!

So now I've attempted my favorite Easter treat, and I now know why the Just Born factory keeps their production secrets so, well, secret! These taste pretty good though, and a box of store boughten Peeps are only $1, so overall I'm pretty proud of my knock-off and am pretty excited to share them with my family this weekend :)

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!!