The Best Homemade Marshmallow Recipe

Name: The Best Homemade Marshmallow Recipe
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 25 min
Yield: 24
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 3 .75 oz. envelopes Unflavored Knox Gelatin; 1/2 cup Water (Ice cold); 1 tablespoon Vanilla Extract; 2 cups Granulated Sugar; 2/3 cup Light Corn Syrup; 1/4 cup Water; Dash Salt; Vegetable Oil; Square Baking Pan (8x8"); Plastic Wrap; 1/2 cup Powdered Sugar; 2 tablespoons Corn Starch

posted by Laurie on November 12, 2019 (updated 2/19/21) // 4 Comments

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This truly is The Best Homemade Marshmallow Recipe – so easy to make and these Marshmallows taste so good that you’ll never want to eat store-bought again.

We love marshmallows. We use them all the time in our baking recipes. But for some reason we hesitated to try to make our own marshmallows from scratch. It seemed daunting. Boy were we wrong. Not daunting at all. Dare we say, they are even kind of easy to make actually. And these fresh marshmallows taste so much better than the ones we already love from the grocery store. So please trust us and give this The Best Homemade Marshmallow Recipe a try. We are so glad we did and if you are also a marshmallow lover, you will be too!

How to make The Best Homemade Marshmallow Recipe

First step, prepare your baking pan. We used an 8×8″ square baking pan. You can use a 9×9″ square pan but he marshmallows will be a little shorter that the ones you see here. We lightly sprayed the baking pan with cooking spray and then covered the pan with plastic wrap. (The spray will help the plastic wrap stay on the pan.) . Then brush the plastic wrap with vegetable oil.

Pour the vanilla and the ice cold water into your mixing bowl. Now sprinkle the three envelopes of Knox Unflavored Gelatin onto the water in the bowl. Gently whisk with a fork until there are no longer any large clumps of gelatin. Allow the gelatin to continue to bloom while you make the simple syrup.

In a medium sauce pan, add sugar, light corn syrup and water. Bring to a boil while stirring. Stop stirring when the sugar is dissolved. You want the sugar mixture to reach a hard boil which means the entire surface of the sugar mixture is bubbling. If you have a candy thermometer, boil the syrup until it reaches 240°F. I don’t usually use a thermometer, instead, when the sugar mixture is at a hard boil I allow it to boil for one more minute and then I take the syrup off the heat.

Turn the whisk on low and slowly pour the sugar syrup into the mixing bowl with the gelatin. Add a pinch of salt.

Once you have poured all the syrup into the bowl, turn the whisk up to high. The mixture will begin to turn white.

Allow the marshmallow mixture thicken for 10-12 minutes. The marshmallow mixture will be thick like a meringue, it will no longer be hot and it will begin to pull away from the edges of the bowl.

Pour the marshmallow mixture into the prepared pan. If necessary, lightly oil your spatula and finger tips to smooth out the top of the marshmallows. Lightly oil a piece of plastic wrap and then cover the top of the marshmallows. Allow the marshmallows to completely cool and firm up at room temperature overnight.

To create the Marshmallow Dust, mix the powdered sugar and cornstarch in a bowl. Mix until thoroughly combined.

Spread out a piece of parchment paper and cover it with a small amount of the Marshmallow Dust. Turn out the marshmallow block from the pan.

Lightly oil a sharp knife and use it to cut the marshmallows into individual marshmallows. Toss the marshmallows into a bowl with the Marshmallow Dust and cover on all sides.

Store the marshmallows in an air-right container. Separate the layers with parchment paper. The marshmallows will last 2-3 weeks at room temperature and a few months if frozen.