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Toasting marshmallows is one of my favourite camping moments. It’s better than fighting over tent pegs, getting campfire smoke in your clothes and having no refrigerator for days. But the worst thing about toasting marshmallows is that it’s usually a strictly camping activity. Or at least, outdoors. Or, at the very least, over an actual fire.
I am making it my personal mission for toasting marshmallows to be an accepted indoors activity over candles. No special event needs to be held for melty marshmallow to be consumed. I am constantly amazed by how few people know this crucial life skill, so let me show you my no-fail, tried-and-tested, candle toasting marshies style, dubbed the Layers Method.
- Take one packet of good quality marshmallows, preferably the four flavour Pascall ones with vanilla, strawberry, banana and apricot.
- Take a candle, any candle. Tealight is fine. Preferably not scented. Light candle.
- Grab a skewer stick from the kitchen cupboard. Poke it through the marshmallow, careful to not poke it the whole way through otherwise you’ll end up with burnt bits of stick in your marshmallow when you pull it off.
- Hold your marshmallow over the candle until it catches on fire. I know this breaks with common campfire convention, but there isn’t enough heat in a candle to toast it any other way (unless you have the patience of a saint and hold your measly skewer over the candle for hours — stuff that). Basically you go around the marshmallow, carefully setting each little bit on fire before blowing it out. If you don’t burn the entire marshmallow, including the bit closest to the stick, then you will have major problems at the next — and most important — step. The process should resemble something like this:
That looks disgusting, you’re thinking. Well, you will be wrong. I promise.
- Now comes the tricky bit: pulling off the layer. This process is called the Layers Method for a reason: eating a marshmallow in layers is the most tasty way of eating and it savours the entire marhsmallow. So, gently grab your blackened marshmallow and pull it up and off the stick in the opposite direction of how you put it on. Don’t go crazy and try and pull it off sideways, it will leak goo everywhere. Instead, it should look something like this:
Eat the tasty black ball of burnt goodness. I assure you it will be delightful. Since the candle isn’t producing that much heat, the burnt bit isn’t bitter and instead has a lovely gooey interior. While you can lick any of the melty goo hanging off the skewer stick, leave the remaining marshmallow ball on it.
- Then, it’s essentially ‘repeat steps 4 and 5’. Except, only the first layer ever burns, the second (and if your marshmallow isn’t completely consumed, third) never burns over a candle, instead gently browning thanks to unknown sugar science. As a nice touch, this layer swells as you heat it, meaning more tasty mashmallow goo. (Note, this picture shows a darker layer than normal. I was talking while toasting.)
Imagine your next dinner party, everyone sitting around the table with an individual candle and skewer, toasting their own marshmallow. An event worthy of a singalong.
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9 Comments
Dear Amber, you are clearly a profoundly damaged person.
But fortunately, there is absolutely NO chance of you ever suffering from anorexia.
P.S. The apricot tastes best.
I think this is a crook idea, mostly due to the presence of the candle.
Candles burn by using some of their heat to melt the candle wax, which is then drawn up the wick. In the wick it keeps getting hotter until the wax vapourises and then mostly catches on fire.
The problem is that some wax doesn’t burn and some doesn’t burn completely. So, in the stream of stuff coming off the top of the flame are some compounds that are the result of combustion and some vapourised and unburnt wax.
This stream bumps into the marshmallow, which will be cooler than the flame. This causes some of the combustion products to precipitate out of the stream and collect on the mashmallow. This is crook.
The difference between this and toasting them over a fire is that a proper fire has radiant heat. A candle isn’t big enough.
Paddy, apricot is my favourite too.
And Eponymous, I appreciate your comment, but am slightly confused. Are you saying that you will actually be ingesting combustion products when burning over a candle? Is there something particularly bad about doing this? (I’m asking quite genuinely).
Yeah Amber, almost certain you’ll be comsuming combustion products and some wax if you eat the mashmallows.
The problem with combustion is that as each molecule is broken up and oxidised funny things happen. Ideally all that would come out is CO2 and water (which would both be quite non-toxic), but because it’s open combustion almost any combination of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen could come out the other end; this includes a HUGE range of chemicals, some poisonous, some not.
Seriously, the risk is probably very low, but I’ve done it before and don’t like the taste.
How bizarre, I’ve never noticed a weird taste and I’ve tried this with heaps of friends and no one has ever mentioned an odd taste. I am, however, horrified that I am potentially killing/poisoning readers.
Good grief Amber.
I can’t believe that we daren’t enjoy the simple pleasures of a candle toasted marshmallow any more.
FFS! I smoked cigarettes for 40 years and only gave up because I needed the money for candles.
Plus I see that dreadful Black witch is now using my innocent words to mock you on twitter.
Is nothing sacred?
Yours in toasted toxic apricot ecstasy P.
Don’t be horrified!
I had hoped that choosing The Dude as an avatar would let everyone know not to take me seriously.
I think the mechanism I describe is probably right, I don’t think for a second that it’s actually bad for your health. It’s more a way of describing how paranoid a busy mind can get…
You’re probably far worse off running for a bus and sitting in the back seat puffing to regain your breath…
Damn it Epoymous. Now you’ve gone and spoiled all the fun.
Eating toasted marshmallows is always delicious .
The thought that it might also be *dangerous*, just made it even tastier.
I sort of hate you already - if only for the fact that I have had to deal with “competent medical staff” who are so stoned off their tits on Valium and other crap - who wouldn’t know the difference between patient records and toilet paper…..much less what year it was.
They shit me - the whole drugged out society shits me.
I am totally for everyone pissing in a jar or taking their resume and leaving.
OK how to cook on a candle.
In still air, the hot air column from a candle tends to rise about 30- 40cm in a very thin column - about as thick as a pencil before it begins to dissipate.
If you can make up a little disperser about 3 or so CM above the flame, about the size of a 50c piece, that will dissipate the very focused column of very hot air and enable you to cook your marsh mallow without having to burn it.