Notes from the Test Kitchen: “Over easy” marshmallows

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

So how do you like your eggs -- er, marshmallows?

We weren’t trying for eggs when we tested the recipe for ‘Marshmallow daisies’ for a recent story ‘Homemade Easter candy, an old-fashioned treat’ by Liz Pearson. But that’s what we got.

Every recipe we run in the Food section is tested before it is printed. Many times we’re lucky, and a recipe will work perfectly the first time. Other recipes might take a couple, or several, tests to work out any kinks. (We ran a cookie recipe two years ago that went through 17 tests before we were confident enough to publish the recipe.)

With the daisies, we had a little trouble nailing the timing for just one step in the recipe -- how long to beat the marshmallow cream -- and ended up with wildly different results with each attempt. The first test yielded a cream that was much too stiff to pipe. The second (pictured at left) was just a bit too runny.

I contacted the author to consult with her and see what we might be doing wrong. It took

a couple more tests before we nailed the timing and proper consistency and piped the marshmallows at right.

We made a couple of notes to the recipe to include visual indicators and shot a ‘step by step’ for the print edition. Then we did our best to try to keep everyone from eating the marshmallows before they were shot (sometimes that’s the hardest part of all).

-- Noelle Carter

Photos by Noelle Carter and Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times