Eureka!

I did. I really did it.

I made a good vegetarian marshmallow.

Yes!

A recipe I printed out a couple of weeks ago, from Gale Gand: Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies.

Cookie rounds, lightly flavored with cinnamon, topped with homemade marshmallow, then coated in chocolate.

Cookies? Easy. Mix a few ingredients together, form it into a disc, and chill. Roll out, cut out small rounds, bake.

Then, top with the homemade marshmallow...which, according to Gand's recipe, should be made using gelatin.

For obvious reasons, that wouldn't work for me. But I do have a few boxes of powdered agar agar; it's worked as a substitute for gelatin in pastry cream, mousse, and other dishes. Why not here?

So, I went for it. As directed, I boiled water, corn syrup and sugar together. But instead of sprinkling gelatin on top of the cold water, I used the agar.
Mixed the two together, added it to eggs whites, and waited to see what happened.

You wanna know, too?

Stiff peaks. Fluffy, non-hoof derived, marshmallow fluff!

I can't properly convey my happiness. I now know that when called for, I can create marshmallows that both Alex and I can eat.

So, pipe marshmallow on to cookies, allow to firm up. Then, dunk the whole cookie into melted chocolate; tap off excess, and allow to dry and set.

And the cookies themselves?

A little like Moon Pies. Fairly soft, thick, but not particularly sweet cookie. Most of it's flavor, and sweetness, comes from the marshmallow and chocolate.

The marshmallow itself was a bit more like a thick cream than a marshmallow, but that's what the recipe was going for.



As you can see, the cookies were a hit with Alex!