What exactly am I concocting at Sprout?

Most of my time these days are spent at Sprout, where I prepare elaborate, creative and unexpected flavors on a plate. Tomorrow I hope to try out a marshmallow recipe using glucose, granulated sugar, vanilla, water, gelatin and salt. The process itself is not difficult to understand, but it's the timing and temperature which can easily affect the end result.

When I was working in France, I prepared minted marshmallow's for the mignardise* plate, but I seemed to have lost the recipe. Thus, I will have to try the Joy of Baking recipe with the substitution of gelatin sheets and glucose for corn syrup. It was only but a couple weeks ago when I first used glucose as an ingredient in baking. It's especially helpful as it provides more stability to the final product. It can be used interchangeably in most recipes with corn syrup but they can/do react differently. The only real difference is that glucose being an invert sugar will not return to crystal form.

In the United States, Legislators allow domestic food manufacturers to call glucose syrup "Corn syrup" because the source of the starch is almost exclusively from maize. However, in other countries, wheat, barley, tapioca, potato, maize, cassava, rice, sago, and arrowroot starches are used to produce glucose syrup. In various proportions, several compounds usually exist in the solution, which include primarily glucose, dextrose, and maltose. After researching, I discovered the equivalence of 1/2 cup corn syrup plus 3 Tbs. water to 1/2 cup glucose plus 1/4 cup water will usually produce the same results.

Remember, each brand of corn syrup may be different, so it's best to read your labels and look at the ingredient list provided.

Well, back to the subject of Marshmallows. I will give the recipe a go, http://www.joyofbaking.com/candy/HomemadeMarshmallows.html
and see where it takes me. Gil advised me to stick with the plain marshmallow recipe first before experimenting. Hopefully I can resist the urge to replace the vanilla with something like elderberry or rootbeer. I guess it is best to get the recipe down first before having too much fun with it eh?

All this talk has me thinking I should do a blog on inverted sugars. Anyone interested in learning more?

*Mignardises are bite sized sweets served after dessert with coffee. The word is derived from the French word Mignard, which means small child or grateful, pretty and delicate.