The Devil's Marshmallow Madness

Last night while making dinner, Jack and I decided to make cupcakes.  Seriously.  Apparently dinner in itself was not at all challenging enough.  I had Devil's Food or White Cake box mix.  Since we were already adding cupcakes to dinner why not make it Devil's Food.  We finished dinner and the cupcakes were cooling when I lost any and all ability to function, thus deciding that frosting would wait until today.

I have been on a bit of a cupcake baking spree.  Along with baking cupcakes, I have been testing lots of frosting recipes.  I have stumbled upon a super yummy Buttercream frosting that the kids Love!  I believe it has more calories than the cake but is it good!  This morning Jack and I were discussing our possible frosting options for Devil's Food Cake and all of the kids said, "Make the Buttercream!"  Tired of Buttercream and the fact that my jeans fit a little tighter than they did in January, I opted for Marshmallow. They have far less calories,( at least that is the story I am going with.)

I searched and searched for Marshmallow Frosting recipes and they all looked basically the same.  The Marshmallow fluff recipes looked delicious. However marshmallow fluff is not one of those pantry staples I keep stocked.  Dreading going to the grocery, one-more-time, I opted for the frosting recipe without the fluff.

 The recipes without the Fluff are pretty straight forward.  Sugar, egg whites, water, cream of tarter and of course vanilla( always optional when baking. )  The recipe called for heating water and sugar until you get a syrup, whipping the egg whites with the cream of tarter and then streaming the syrup into the egg whites and whipping until cool.  Simple.  Easy.

NOT.

Funny how hindsight is always 20/20.  I remember reading the recipe which said, "heat water and syrup until sugar is dissolved, about 2-3 minutes." As I was stirring (constantly, per the recipe) I was thinking that this was very similar to the recipes that call for light corn syrup.  I even got out my candy thermometer to make sure I didn't overheat the syrup.  This all took about 10 minutes, not the aforementioned 2-3 minutes.  I took the syrup mixture off the stove at 175 degrees, well before the soft ball stage on my Candy thermometer.  (mistake!  Big FRIKIN' mistake.)

I continued on with the recipe as it was written, streaming the syrup into the egg whites.  Beating, and whipping and beating and whipping.  I must have looked at the recipe 10 or more times.  Yep, it said, "Continue beating the frosting until cool and billowy, about 5 minutes. Immediately spread the frosting on the cupcakes and top as desired."  

Fast forward 30 minutes, still beating, still mixing.  still not billowy.  A large undulating mass I had and still as liquid as my coffee, which by this time has gone Cold!  (Don't worry it is still good that way.)  Now I improvise.  I started adding Powdered sugar, vanilla, more powdered sugar, I even refrigerated it!  Eventually I reached a consistency that I thought would surely stiffen as it settled.  HA!  HA!  Hardy-har!   

What a drippy, sticky, non-billowy, mess.  Oh but it is yummy.  Ginger told me.  She tested it when I accidentally dripped once, or twice.  Now I have Devil's Food cupcakes, topped with the Devil's own Marshmallow frosting.  But wait.. There's more.

A few mini-marshmallows, mini-chocolate chips, and a sprinkle of gram crackers.  Yep, you guessed it!  A SMORE cupcake.    Trust me they are just as messy as the name implies.

I considered lightly toasting the frosting, but what a sugar headache I had! Sometimes it's better to say enough is enough and change into sweats.