Domestic Randomness: How to Save Money and Food: Reconstituting Stale Marshmallows

Thursday, May 17, 2012

How to Save Money and Food: Reconstituting Stale Marshmallows

I have a feeling that most of you think that we blogger moms have it all together. That we have our whole lives organized in a binder, we whip up crafts every day, and every recipe that we try turns out great. (I know that you are thinking that because that's what I thought before I started blogging). The truth is we are just people, just women, just moms like you. To illustrate that point I thought that I would share with you a flop turned fabulous (well turned ok and not flopish :)
For some reason I have the hardest time keeping marshmallows fresh, I guess I just don't eat them often enough (which is not really a bad thing :). And they always get hard before I use them. I have tried in the past to make rice krispie treats out of these dried out marshmallows and it didn't work out so well, apparently dried marshmallow don't melt well. One time I tried using lot of butter but that obviously is not a great idea. Another time I tried using milk but it soaked into the rice krispies and the treats were soggy. So this time I again had some dried out marshmallows, and I again wanted to make rice krispie treats (I know I am a glutton for punishment, I could just use them in hot chocolate or smores, but I had 2 bags of marshmallows, that's a lot of hot chocolate and smores). So I got the idea to look up what to do with dried out marshmallows, how to reconstitute them so that they would melt again. I found The Fat Dollar who wrote an entire article about things to do with stale marshmallows they said that to reconstitute marshmallow you can put them in a ziplock bag with a piece of bread. I did this and it did make the marshmallows soft again, but I think because I had so many marshmallows 1 piece of bread didn't do it, I didn't want to waste all my bread with this experiment so I didn't add any more. I went ahead and started the rice krispie treats and of course the marshmallows would not melt again. So I remembered that another tip on The Fat Dollar was to microwave the marshmallows with a bowl of water. I figured that if you can microwave them with water then you can add water to them while cooking. So I added water to the marshmallows and it worked! I added a little bit at a time until the marshmallows were all melted. The marshmallows melted and the rice krispies were not soggy. I also learned from The Fat Dollar that you can store marshmallows in the freezer and they will not go stale. I think I will try that next time, but if I have stale marshmallows again I will know what to do.

My dried out, stale marshmallows

The marshmallows with bread in the bag

Another tip from The Fat Dollar: For marshmallows that are sticking together add some powdered sugar to the bag and shake, this will separate the marshmallows.