A delightful sweet with an elegant fusion of flavours to enjoy alone or with your favourite hot chocolate.
Ingredients
1 ½ tablespoons Bridestowe Culinary Lavender
1 ½ tablespoons loose leaf earl grey tea
1 ½ cups water
2 ½ tablespoons powdered gelatin
1 ½ cups normal white sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
½ cup icing sugar mixture, sifted
½ cup cornflour, sifted
Method
- Bring the 1 ½ cups of water to the boil and add the culinary lavender and earl grey tea leaves. Take it off the heat and allow the flavours to infuse for 30 minutes. Strain and measure ½ cup of the tea into a small bowl and place in the freezer until it’s very cold. Measure another ½ cup of the tea into a medium sized saucepan. Discard the rest of the tea.
- Once the first ½ cup of tea is really cold, add the gelatin powder, mix well and set aside so that the gelatin can absorb the water and become nice and soft.
- Grease a 28x18cm tin well with cooking spray and line the base and sides with baking paper, allowing a good 3cm overhang.
- Combine the sifted icing sugar mixture and cornflour in a medium sized bowl and set aside. Lightly grease the paper in the tin again and dust generously with some of the icing sugar/cornflour mix.
- Add the white sugar to the tea in the medium sized saucepan and stir over a medium heat until the sugar has dissolved and the syrup is clear. Add the gelatin, stir well until the gelatin has broken up and dissolved into the syrup, and then bring to the boil. Promptly take it off the heat, place in the bowl of your stand mixer and allow the mixture to cool down for about 15 minutes.
- Add a pinch of salt, and beat on a medium speed until the mixture begins to thicken up. This takes about 3 minutes. Slowly increase the speed on your mixer and beat until the marshmallow gets big and fluffy…it may take up to about 8 or 9 minutes but it does get big and fluffy! Add the vanilla and beat for a final 30 seconds before turning off your machine.
- Scoop the mixture into your prepared tray, smooth the top and allow to set for about an hour. After the hour, using the baking paper in the tin, lift the marshmallow onto a board and cut it into 20 squares. As you cut the squares, things could get a little sticky so it is best to pop a couple of squares at a time into the bowl with the icing sugar/ cornflour mix and roll them about until they are well coated and dry to the touch.
- Place the marshmallows onto another plate or lined wire rack and allow them to set completely (about an hour) before serving.
Cook’s note: Due to its sticky nature, I usually lightly grease a rubber spatula with cooking spray to scoop the marshmallow out of the mixer into the tin. I also like to use a lightly greased offset spatula to smooth the marshmallow into the corners of the tin and to smooth the top a little. Same goes with the knife used to cut the marshmallow into squares – it makes it so much easier to obtain clean cuts when the knife has been lightly greased.
This recipe was created using Bridestowe Gourmet products by Helen from Mumma’s Country Kitchen. It has been reproduced here with her permission. You can see more of Helen’s beautiful work on Facebook and Instagram.
