Hot Chocolate with Homemade Honey Marshmallows

***RECIPE, MAKES FOUR PORTIONS***

For the marshmallows

1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup honey (or corn syrup, if you don't want honey flavor)
1/4 oz packet unflavored gelatin (or two teaspoons agar powder)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
water
powdered sugar
nonstick spray (or oil)

For the hot chocolate

3 cups whole milk
1/4 -1 cup sugar
3.5 oz dark chocolate bar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
1 teaspoon cornstarch slurry (optional)

Start the marshmallows the night before.

Spray or oil up the inside of a small loaf pan. Scoop in a heap of powdered sugar and thoroughly coat the interior of the pan with sugar. Knock out the excess.

Mix the gelatin with 1/4 cup of water in a heat-proof mixing bowl. Get an electric hand mixer ready, and have your loaf pan at hand.

Put the sugar, honey and 1/4 cup of water in a small saucepan and put it on high heat. Shake the pan to combine the ingredients once they get hot (and therefore less viscous). Boil the mixture until it reaches 240 F (115 C), then carefully pour it into the gelatin while beating with the hand mixer.

Beat the marshmallow until it's white and fluffy, and just barely cool enough that you can touch it. Beat in the vanilla extract, then quickly pour the marshmallow into the loaf pan before it sets.

If you want, brûlée the surface of the marshmallow with a kitchen torch.

Put the pan into the fridge uncovered until the marshmallow is very firm — a few hours, or overnight.

Dust a cutting board heavily with powdered sugar, and dust your hand. Peel the marshmallow sheet out of the pan and lay it into the sugar. Grease up a knife and coat it in sugar before cutting the sheet into long strips, about as wide as the sheet is tall. Toss all of the resulting strips in sugar, then line them up and cut them into cubes. Pull all the cubes apart and toss them in the sugar.

To make the hot chocolate, put three cups of milk and at least 1/4 cup of sugar (you can add more to taste later) in a small saucepan on medium heat. Break the chocolate bar into small chunks directly into the milk, then immediately start whisking until the mixture is homogenous. Taste, then add additional sugar, if desired.

Add the optional cornstarch to stabilize the mixture and give it a smoother texture. Make sure the mixture is hot enough to gelatinize the starch – approaching a simmer. Add the vanilla, if you're into that.

Take it off the heat as soon as it's done.

[aragusea]

Q: Didn't you previously have a pinned comment here about how you weren't going to post a FAQ because it was Thanksgiving? And then didn't you asked people how their turkey was coming?
A: Yes, but it is now the day after Thanksgiving, so I'm going to attempt to answer some common questions.

Q: Why are you recommending that I use a very dark chocolate bar? Can't I use milk chocolate if I don't like dark chocolate?
A: Milk + dark chocolate = milk chocolate. Milk + milk chocolate = very milky chocolate, which maybe you'll like, but I suspect you'd think was kinda bland.

Q: Do you realize that 70% cacao isn't "very dark" or "very intense" to me?
A: Yes, and I'm so very impressed by you and the relative scale of your genitalia.

Q: Is that a tiny whisk we saw you using to mix the gelatin with the water?
A: Nope, it's handle of the measuring cup I used to pour the water in.

Q: Why are so many of your videos sponsored by Squarespace?
A: I assume because I generate a lot of sales for them, and because we like working with each other. But you'd have to ask them.

Q: Could I use agave syrup or maple syrup instead of honey?
A: Agave syrup, definitely. Maple syrup, I'm not sure about. I've read that maple syrup is not a fully inverted syrup, and an inverted syrup is useful to mix with the cane sugar because it makes it impossible for the syrup to form crystals and seize up into a sugar ball in the pan. But that's only a possibility, not a certainty, anyway. So, maple syrup would probably be fine.

Q: Do you realize that you just revealed your street number to the world?
A: Yes. I'm in the phone book. I'm a home owner. My address is an easily googleable matter of public record. To try to purge the internet of my address would be a futile exercise. The way that real celebrities keep their addresses off the internet is to employ infocsec firms to do it constantly. You're all on your honor to not show up and murder all of us.

[Dappa]

Why I cook at my friends house, and not my own.

[chaonghabibdiev]

what i learned today : I'm never making marshmallows ever

[pieterd]

Both ginger and peppermint (although I've never tried both at the same time) provide a nice fresh contrast, in my opinion. Maybe not the best if you're just trying to feel warm in the mid of winter, but if you're feeling a bit more experimental when making hot chocolate, try this.

[dc]

Erin's home is gorgeous! And she has a sheltie!!! Erin is a good person.

[JJunkAFunk]

Erin has an amazing kitchen oh my goodness. Hope she has a happy holidays.

[ravener]

adding a little coffee (even instant coffee works nicely, better imo) does great

[PixVox]

"one by one tear them apart from there brothers and sisters "

I unironically felt that

[sethbeme]

I could never put in that much effort for just a hot chocolate

[undeniablySomeGuy]

JUST TAKE SOME CHOCOLATE, CRUSH IT INTO SOME MILK AND BOIL

[Marcus-ynwc]

New mixer looks better than my 90s mixer

[onaupton]

“And I’ll summon forth the upside down bear”

-Adam Ragusea 2019

[ValhallaXYZ]

Gotta have respect for a guy who makes his own marshmallows lol

[roadchewerpe]

Was hoping for a beverage video! Thanks, Happy Thanksgiving. Hope you got a break from Turkey today.

[aliceg]

I try to restrict my envy to attainable things, so I'm just gonna say that your neighbor's cutting board is gorgeous!

[abdouLNB]

I really like hot chocolate the way I do it, but I really want to try something that makes me go "It's excellent, Adam !" I tried the marshmallows in the same quantity and it was really good, tried it in a bigger quantity and it was horribly spongy

[JohnJohansen]

Hot chocolate for one:
A glass filled three quarters with milk, some high quality dark chocolate.
Nuke in microwave for little less than two minutes. Mustn't boil.
Stir, taste with sugar and add whipped cream, marshmallows or whatever.

[Launcherspider]

I really appreciate the mentioning of a vegan version

[eesaadin]

Instead of the honey (for the marshmallows) can I use golden syrup?

[ssRen]

This guy gets sponsored by square space so much that his promotional code never expires