Happy Easter.
Peep Show
By Robert L. Wolke
Wednesday, March 20, 2002; Page F01
How do you like your Peeps? Fresh from the carton? Stale? Frozen?According to a 1999 survey by Just Born Inc. of Bethlehem, Pa., the sole manufacturers of Marshmallow Peeps, those little yellow, pink, lavender and blue chicks that seem to hatch out all over the place at Easter time, 20 percent of Peeps eaters let them get stale and 5 percent freeze them.
The Just Born company was named not only for its chicks but for Sam Born, a Russian immigrant candymaker and inventor of chocolate sprinkles (or jimmies), who founded the company in New York in 1923. Just Born has been turning out Marshmallow Peeps since 1953. They are made of a sweet, puffy substance whose odd name and texture I'll bet you wondered about, as I did when I was a kid.
The magical material called marshmallow is named after the marsh mallow plant (Althaea officinalis), whose roots contain a sweet, gummy sap that has been used as a confection and for its supposed medicinal properties for some 4,000 years. In the late 19th century, when candymakers were unable to keep up with demand for the real thing, an imitation marshmallow was concocted from sugar, starch and gelatin. Today, most marshmallow candies are made from corn syrup, sugar, modified starch and gelatin. (Modified starch is starch that has been treated chemically or physically to improve its characteristics for manufacturing purposes, such as by making it able to mix with and thicken cold water.)
Foams
The most pleasurable characteristic of marshmallow is its uniquely soft, pillowy texture, unmatched by any other food. To make it, a hot (240 degrees Fahrenheit) mixture of corn syrup, sugar, water and gelatin is whipped vigorously into a frothy foam until it is two to three times its original volume. Zillions of microscopic air bubbles remain trapped as the mixture cools and the gelatin sets. The result is a solid that is only 35 percent to 45 percent as heavy (dense) as water.
A foam is a suspension of gas bubbles in a liquid. The bubbles are so tiny (Techspeak: they are of colloidal size) that they never rise to the surface; they stay suspended in the liquid. Often, we still call it a foam after the liquid has solidified or dried, such as in marshmallow, Styrofoam and baked meringues. Foams can be stabilized -- the air bubbles are prevented from coalescing into bigger bubbles -- by chemicals such as soaps and proteins.
In foods, we prefer protein stabilizers: the gelatin in marshmallow, the casein in whipped cream and the albumins in egg-white meringues. Spanish chef Ferran Adria of the restaurant El Bulli near Barcelona has become famous (some say infamous) by experimenting with unusual food textures, including foams. At last report, he was not using soap stabilizers.
A Dandy Candy
The most familiar marshmallow confections, Campfire and Jet-Puffed, are in the shape of small cylinders about an inch in diameter and an inch long. Why that shape? Because in marshmallow factories the cooling foam is piped through a long, one-inch-diameter tube, and the emerging rope is then chopped into approximately one-inch lengths. (In case anyone ever asks you, Campfires are an eighth of an inch wider and an eighth of an inch shorter than Jet-Puffed marshmallows).
By measuring and weighing them carefully (okay, so I'm a nut), I have calculated (a) that Campfire marshmallows are 23 percent less dense, that is, 23 percent puffier, than Jet-Puffed and (b) that the 90 million pounds of marshmallows consumed annually in the United States would make a single marshmallow 30 yards in diameter and as tall as the Washington Monument.
The texture of marshmallow can be controlled by adjusting the proportions of ingredients and the amount of whipping. It ranges from the semi-liquid Marshmallow Fluff to the more elastic and chewier marshmallows that can stand up to being coated with chocolate. That's why chocolate-covered marshmallow candies are never as soft inside as you expect them to be.
Toasting 'em
You cannot have read this far without thinking about toasting marshmallows on a stick over a campfire, right? The fire's heat both melts the gelatin and caramelizes the sugar, producing a hot, caramel-flavored goo that yin-yangs your tongue with heat and sweet. But as in all cooking, there is a right way and a wrong way. Wrong way: Hold the marshmallow just above the flames until it catches fire, and let it burn until it has a crisp, black crust. Don't be deterred by the fact that the crust is made of indigestible carbon laced with bitter-tasting and probably carcinogenic tars. Right way: Wait until the fire has died down to glowing coals and then hold the marshmallow high over them, rotating it until it slowly develops a nice, uniform tan color. (Patience, patience.) If it should catch fire, blow it out immediately, let it cool for a few seconds, and continue toasting.
In the Boy Scouts I learned to find and cut a long green twig that wouldn't catch fire. Today, you can buy a package of Smorstix, 30-inch-long, "100 percent untreated white birch" sticks with which you can toast your marshmallows with a clear environmental conscience instead of "trampling the underbrush and damaging trees and forests" in your search for a toasting stick. (Quotes are from the Smorstix Web site.) Ah, for the simpler, politically incorrect days of my youth!
Female readers of this column are likely know why Smorstix were so named: for s'mores, the Girl Scouts' traditional campfire dessert made (according to the recipe in a 1927 Girl Scout Manual) by inserting two toasted marshmallows between halves of a chocolate bar sandwiched between graham crackers. The hot, gooey marshmallow melts the chocolate, making even more goo.
For those who don't have access to a campfire, I have invented an indoor alternative to fire-roasted marshmallows.
MARSHMALLOW ZAPS
Arrange a ring of six large (not miniature) marshmallows, upright and well separated, Stonehenge style, on a microwave-safe dinner plate. Zap in the microwave oven on high, while watching through the window as the marshmallows balloon to several times their size. Stop the oven when they have developed brown, volcano-like holes on top, after about 1 1/2 minutes. Remove the plate carefully (it will be quite hot) and place it on the counter to cool completely, during which time the marshmallows will deflate and flatten.
Remove each "zap" from the plate (it will be quite sticky), dip its bottom into a plate of confectioners' sugar and place it on a serving dish or platter. It will be crisp as a meringue on the outside and chewy on the inside, with a layer of brown caramelized sugar in the middle as if it were an inside-out fire-roasted marshmallow.
How does it work? In the interior of the marshmallow, the microwaves' energy converts water into steam, which first puffs up the marshmallow and then, when the gelatin's elasticity limit is exceeded, breaks its way out though a hole it punches in the top. Meanwhile, the dehydrated interior sugar caramelizes under the influence of the heat. Because dehydration is the first step in the complex series of chemical reactions involved in caramelization, the interior, dehydrated sugar caramelizes first. The outer parts of the marshmallow, still saturated with steam, would not caramelize unless heated longer. As the marshmallows cool, the steam condenses and the foam collapses.
They may not look pretty, but you'll want s'more.
Robert L. Wolke (www.professorscience.com) is professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh and the author, most recently, of "What Einstein Told His Barber: More Scientific Answers to Everyday Questions" (Dell Publications, $12.95). His next book, "What Einstein Told His Cook: Kitchen Science Explained" will be published by W.W. Norton in May. Send your kitchen questions to wolke@pitt.edu. |
