Recipe of the Week: Sugared Raspberry Lemon Drop Mallows

[addtoany]

Easter is full of candies, sweets and treats. The Easter bunny makes sure that kids are well supplied with sugary delights. But what about the grown-ups? They deserve some tasty nibbles too, right? The correct answer is yes.

Mackenzie Schieck, author of the Pine and Crave blog, has got us adults covered during this time of temptation. Her sugared raspberry lemon drop mallows are a wonderful balance of berry fruitiness and the unmistakable tartness of lemons. Pink, yellow and sparkling with sugar, they look and taste just as Easter should.

A warning though: these will go quickly, so it might be best to keep them just for yourself.

No guilt.

Sugared Raspberry Lemon Drop Mallows

Prep time: 1 hr 10 min | Ready in: 7 hours, 10 min

Ingredients:

Cooking spray

6 packages unflavored gelatin

5 cups granulated sugar, divided

4 cups frozen raspberries (or fresh)

6 or 7 Meyer lemons (enough to get 1 cup of juice)

Yellow food coloring (optional)

Cooking tools:

A candy thermometer

Tin foil

9×13-inch cake or jelly roll pan

Directions: 

1. Defrost raspberries overnight in the fridge. You can also defrost by heating them on the stove top in a saucepan over medium low heat—just be sure to cool the juice before you add it to the gelatin.
2. Use the back of a fork to mash the raspberries, then use the back of a spoon to press through a fine mesh strainer, separating the seeds from the juice. You’ll want 1 cup of juice—if you’re a little short, just add in a little cold water.
3. Juice Meyer lemons until you have 1 cup of juice.
4. Line the inside of the pan with tin foil, then coat well with cooking spray. (You can also skip the tin foil and just coat the pan—I’ve actually been finding this to be an easier method lately.)

Follow the below directions twice—once with lemon juice, and once with raspberry juice. It doesn’t matter which one you do first. Note: You can use a few drops yellow food coloring to punch up the color of lemon if you like—if you do, add it in the last minute of beating the batter.

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine a 1/2 of a cup of juice with 3 packets of gelatin and allow to sit until gelatin forms, about 15 minutes.
2. In a medium saucepan on medium heat, combine 2 cups of sugar and 1/2 of a cup of juice, then stir until sugar has dissolved—about 3 to 5 minutes. Increase heat to bring mixture to a low boil, and continue to boil until the temperature reaches 240 degrees F on a candy thermometer—about 12 to 15 minutes. Remove from heat.
3. Slowly pour sugar mixture into the bowl with the gelatin, simultaneously using a mixer on low. Gradually increase speed to high and continue whipping until the mix is very thick, about 10 to 15 minutes—imagine the consistency of pourable taffy.
4. Pour the mixture into the pan (or in the pan on top of the first flavor if this is your second batch), smoothing the surface with a spatula. (Spray spatula with cooking spray as needed to keep it from sticking) Let the marshmallow sit for about 6 hours, uncovered, until completely set.
5. Cover a surface larger than the marshmallow slab with remaining sugar and flip the cake pan over so that marshmallow lands on the sugared surface.
6. Cut marshmallows in whatever shapes you’d like, then press all sides into sugar so marshmallows are completely covered.
7. Store in an air-tight container, and I love them the most when they come straight from the freezer. Marshmallows are kind of like alcohol in that they don’t actually freeze, they just get really cold. Mmm…

Check out Schieck’s post on Marshmallow Tips for a little extra help.