Homemade Marshmallows!

Ta-da!
Special thanks to my friend Lisa Stevenson for sharing the recipe on one of my "mom" lists. This comes from the Kid Friendly Food Allergy Cookbook by Leslie Hammond and Lynne Marie Rominger (2004). Here's the basic rundown of what I did:
I put 3 cups organic sugar in a saucepan with 1 1/4 cups not-organic corn syrup (does anyone even bother to make organic corn syrup??), a little salt, and 3/4 cup water. While this heated and boiled for a few minutes, I sprinkled 4 envelopes of gelatin on another 3/4 cup of water in a mixing bowl. This turned into fairly solid-feeling goo rather quickly. I don't understand the purpose of this step, but oh well.
Next, I was supposed to be able to pour the hot syrup mix into the gelatin in a thin stream while mixing. HA! Only if you have a stand mixer, friends, otherwise this is, as I discovered, hopeless. So very hopeless. So, I poured rather quickly, in a moderate stream, and got the heavy pan set down so I could mix.
Now I was supposed to beat on high for about 28 minutes!! Are you crazy??! How bad do I want these frapping no-artificial-color marshmallows?! Well, that did NOT happen, and I never quite got to true stiff peaks, but I stuck with it for several minutes, taking breaks here and there as required by my children and arm fatigue. Some where during that time I also beat in some vanilla extract, although the recipe called for powdered vanilla, which I didn't have.
I had greased a pan earlier, and so poured the liquidy marshmallow goo into it when I got fed up with mixing. By the next morning, voila! Solid marshmallow goo! I cut them into squarish shapes (frequent oilings of my knife really helped) and tossed them in powdered sugar.
They are fantabulous!! The only disappointment is that they do NOT roast well. Perhaps if I had beaten them longer, made them fluffier? But at any rate this batch was a bust for roasting. On the other hand, they taste so good I don't need to char them to make them palatable. Next batch I'll hopefully have a stand mixer, and I'll drizzle some with melted chocolate and sprinkle some others with cocoa powder... mmmmm.....