Marshmallows

A few weeks ago I was scouring blogs looking for new things to cook when I cam across this recipe for marshmallows and all I could think was how cool it would be to make the boys marshmallows!  Both boys have become addicted to s'mores when we're up in MN camping and visiting family and they both love marshmallows so I thought this would be a great treat to make for them.  Their love for this treat and an introduction from my friends Jesse and Lily to something they call "goo" (that's made from a ton of marshmallows) convinced me to find a way to make my own.  After checking that recipe a bit closer I found that it called for a raspberry liqueur and raspberry powder that I didn't have so I went on the search for a recipe that I have all the ingredients called for.  First I checked joyofbaking.com, which is a great resource for sweets, and found this recipe and then went with my standby, Alton Brown, and found his recipe to be almost identical so I went for it.  I did stick with the original raspberry flavor since that was where the original idea came from, using almost a teaspoon of raspberry extract and about 10 drops of red food coloring (so they'd be pretty) rather than the vanilla extract Alton's recipe called for.  These went over so well that I'm planning on making several flavors up for the holidays and giving them as gifts - I've got chocolate, vanilla, raspberry, mint, almond, lemon and coconut extracts in the pantry right now, that's a TON of marshmallow possibilities!  Word of warning, remember which direction is OFF on your mixer or else you run  a hazard of coating your kitchen in sticky goo, like I did!