Marshmallows...

This post is a little overdue. But, busy happens. This past week my friend Dawn and I hosted our first cooking class. It was a lot of fun but we definitely have to make a few changes to how we run future classes. The topic of the class was sauce. My friend Chris came with his mom, Carol, and we (they) drank wine while we prepared a basic tomato sauce, a tomato and butter sauce and puttanesca.

The most interesting thing for me was tasting the three sauces side-by-side. It's amazing how different the three sauces were even though they are all variations of each other. My fave was the puttanesca.

Every time I read my friend Emma's blog I am jealous that she is always experimenting with recipes. Everything she makes looks delish! So, I decided that I should do the same. I've had a ridiculously sized box of coconut flakes from Restaurant Depot sitting in my pantry so I decided to use some of that - but what to make?? MARSHMALLOWS!!

Marshmallows. I LOVE me some marshmallows. I'll take a gummy candy over any other. I find Alton Brown's marshmallow recipe to be the best one out there so I decided to manipulate it and make a Caribbean inspired marshmallow! I flavored it using the seeds from a Mexican vanilla bean, Mexican vanilla bean extract, rum and toasted coconut. Why Mexican vanilla bean / extract? Two reasons. Recently, Emma and I did a taste comparison of vanilla beans from Mexico, Tahiti and Madagascar. I loved the smokiness of the bean from Mexico. Also, my parents brought me back (the hugest bottle ever made) of vanilla extract from their trip to Mexico and I've been waiting for the perfect reason to use it.

Let's just say I'll definitely be making these again!