Carrot Marshmallows

I have a pretty nutty week ahead. In the span of four hours I’m going to be transported from rural Arkansas where I have been hiding out and have  had to take desperate measures for an internet connection….to the meatpacking district of New York City where the internet and just about everything else is fast. Talk about culture shock. I’ll have to put some eucalyptus oil on my temples. Or channel my post-college-Manhattanite-stiletto-wearing-bump-and-grind days.

Anyway, I’m going to be taping an episode of Iron Chef on Tuesday at the Food Network. No… I’m not going to be going head to head with Morimoto. I’m going to be a judge. I’m just there to eat. Story of my life! Hopefully they have an iron at the hotel because um… this girl has been living out of a suitcase for the past few months and things are looking rough.

Then I have to somehow manage the final edits of the Girl Hunter book in the process. So I probably won’t get to take full advantage of the bump and grind in the meat packing district. I’m going to be writing about meat in my meat packing district hotel while eating meat.

Meat, meat, meat.

But I’m here to talk about marshmallows!

During my restaurant kitchen days, I used to make marshmallows from time to time. It was a rather complicated affair, with complicated ingredients like ‘inverted sugar.’ But this is much, much easier.

Much.

Sometimes I would get a little wild and add not so ordinary flavors to be subversive. That was how I expressed my inner wild child.

I love a good tall glass of cold carrot juice. I love starting my day with it. I love it with breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Why not in my dessert as well?

This recipe doesn’t require inverted sugar, but rather all sweet ingredients that you can find in the baking aisle.

I would recommend an electric mixer, however. This requires some serious whipping for quite some time to incorporate the “fluff.”

And it’s sticky. Very, very sticky. Be prepared to lick your fingers. And your hair.

But it’s rather fun to make your own marshmallows. You can even use cookie cutters to make your favorite shapes for birthdays, holidays, or Wednesdays!

Let ’em dry for a while prior to serving, to eliminate sticky fingers everywhere.

And think about all of the flavor combinations? I’ve made lime flavored, grapefruit, tomato water, the world is your oyster.

Give these a try sometime! You can see the full recipe I based this on and the step-by-step over at Tasty Kitchen.