mar-low-licious

as perhaps a few of you will recall, just over a year ago I received the most delightful gift from a good friend who is oh so familiar with my YOT obsession. I figured it was time to tackle something from this most fabulous of booklets and dive into the world of desserts once and for all.

published 1930 by angelus-campfire co., chicago

desserts scare me. there, I said it. I never make them for three reasons: 1) I prefer savory to sweet always, 2) desserts are unbelievably easy to source in the purchased form and 3) baking is like watching paint dry. so I rarely go down this road and when I do find myself out of my element. I figured it would be a no-brainer to make one of chef roemer’s recipes of the palace hotel fame but that turned out to be too stressful to fathom. check this out:

EGGS IN A NEST: Mix 2 cups flour, 1/2 cup butter, 2 eggs, 1/2 cup sugar and the grated rind of 1/2 lemon. Chill, then roll as pie paste and bake a shell of this sugar dough on a pie tin. Fill with French Cream and cover with Campfire Marshmallows. Garnish with apricot jam.

that’s the extent of the recipe. sure, an experienced baker could sort this out in a heartbeat but I’m left with “chill how long?” “bake at what temperature?” “bake on a pie tin or in a pie tin? and for how long?” “wtf is french cream?” “why is chef roemer all hoity-toity?!?”

so I chose something that came with a ton of explanation and didn’t involve an oven. not a famous chef’s recipe but definitely doable. campfire marlows after the jump.

as the campfire folks explain:

Marlows are first cousins to the mousses, for they both use gelatine as their stiffening “agent.” Only, in the case of marlows, gelatine is introduced by means of marshmallows, while in mousses it is added in dissolved granulated form.

I am so down with this explanation. they go on to offer important tips about dissolving the marshmallows thoroughly, chilling the foundation, when to introduce food coloring, methods for freezing, etc. I am so confident right now it ain’t no joke. here we go.

CHOCOLATE MARLOW

20 Campfire Marshmallows
1 cup milk
1 square chocolate
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup whipping cream
Few grains salt

Melt 15 Campfire Marshmallows and chocolate in milk over hot water. Chill until slightly thickened; add vanilla, salt and whipped cream. Cut 5 Campfire Marshmallows in small pieces and fold into the mixture. Pour into freezing compartment of refrigerator and freeze from 6 to 8 hours.

well firstly, I’m well aware that a square of chocolate means a square of baking chocolate (at least I think so?) but I’m in no mood to buy a bar of the stuff since it will inevitably go to waste (see above re: me never baking) so I decide to use a square of dagoba chocolate I scored yesterday at the fancy food show. I prefer the taste of vanilla anyway. secondly, I’m loving this calls for salt. it turns out what ina’s been preaching for years is so yesterday’s news! thirdly, “freezing compartment?”

I started things off by prepping the ingredients. I’m assuming “cutting marshmallows into small pieces” is what eventually spawned miniature marshmallows because that process was a sticky pain in the you-know-what.

ingredients: SUGAR!

after resisting every temptation within me to microwave the marshmallow/chocolate/milk mixture I climbed up on my step stool to pull down my tin bowls only to discover the one that was the oh so perfect size for a double boil situation was missing. I resort to a pyrex but panic… will this work? then I had a harsh talking to with myself to stop pussy-footing around.

steamy!

after a good 10 minutes I’m feeling tempted to call it a day and treat myself to a hot chocolate.

this cold snap is BS: drink me.

when it was all thoroughly disolved it looked like this:

ready for the refrigerator

I gave the bowl a little shake now and then as it chilled and sure enough you could see the gelatin setting in. this progress didn’t stop me from worrying about timing it with the whipped cream however. I decided to stop being a ye new tymey lazy person and whip by hand so consulted the i-net for some tips. my favorite one was “switch hands to lessen fatigue.” hmm, noted.

I knew to chill the bowl but also read to chill the cream. I underestimated the power of my freezing compartment and thank goodness pulled it out when I did.*

dessert induced panic attack!

making whipped cream by hand is totally annoying, especially when your words with friends elbow starts acting up. I was pretty much freaking out I’d never conquer the soft peak, let alone the highest one. just kidding, I never want to climb a mountain.

victory!

so I folded it all together with the greatest care and ended up with this:

yeah boyeee

folded in the marshmallows, set it to freeze and crossed my fingers.

the marlow of my dreams

hours later… drumroll please…!!

so vintage!

was it good? of course it was good. it’s whipping cream and sugar for god’s sake. its downfall was being annoyingly close to ice cream without being ice cream. full fat but too airy and when you bit down it sort of crunched like walking on snow. I think it was, dare I say, too frozen. I guess my highfalutin freezer got the better of me.

——————–

*twss

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