Polidori Chocolates

On "natural marshmallow flavor."

As mentioned in my last post, gourmet marshmallows are something of a food trend right now. I make them, as do a number of other confectioners, and some small companies specialize in nothing but fluff.

 Foodie blog The Nibble took a detailed look at marshmallows and even conducted a taste test of several brands. So far my own marketing study has been limited to one brand, because I saw on their website that they could be found at a high-end supermarket here in Portland. And, well, I was driving past there earlier today. I won't reveal the brand name, because I don't want it to seem like I'm ragging on a competitor -- if you Google "gourmet marshmallows" you'll find them easily enough.

To my surprise, the Vanilla Bean Marshmallows offered by Company X are ... well ... not great.

The size is fine -- 1" square, as opposed to my 1 1/2" size -- small enough to float atop a cup of cocoa, big enough to make two nibbley bites straight out of the bag. They're nicely light, with a pleasant chewiness. The problem is the flavor.

They taste, to be perfectly honest, like the marshmallows one finds in Lucky Charms cereal.

The package says that the marshmallows are "all natural," and if you look at the nutritional info on the company's site, it lists the following: Sugar, Honey, Corn Syrup, Water, Gelatin, Ground Vanilla Beans, Natural Vanilla Extract, Salt, Corn Starch, Powdered Sugar.

But, marshmallows in hand, a peek at the back of the bag tells a slightly different story: Sugar, Honey, Corn Syrup, Water, Gelatin, Ground Vanilla Beans, Natural Vanilla Extract, Natural Marshmallow Flavor, Salt, Corn Starch, Powdered Sugar. Hmm. Slight difference there. Yes, that was "natural marshmallow flavor" I tasted, all right. Blech.

Now, by FDA standards, I have no doubt that these marshmallows are, indeed, "all natural." But in reality, there's a bit of chicanery going on here. Because there's no such thing as natural marshmallow flavor. Unless this company has access to magical marshmallow trees that ooze marshmallow juice ... but I've never heard of them. And before some smarty-pants brings it up, marshmallows haven't been made from the actual mallow plant (Althaea officinalis) in a very, very long time.

There's a Code of Federal Regulations that defines, in painfully detailed terms, what can legally be called a "natural" flavor. It goes, in part, like this: "... a natural flavor is the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional."

All of which means that a natural flavor must be produced from a natural substance. If it's not -- if it's entirely created from chemicals in a lab -- it's artificial.

What it doesn't require is that the flavor actually be derived from the substance that it tastes like. "Natural apple flavor" doesn't have to come from apples, for example. It could be made from liver, or fermented eggs, or beet juice -- as long as the origin is something found in nature, it's "natural." Some flavors, like the "natural blue cheese flavor" added to cheese puffs, are derived from petroleum distillates. Vanillan, a cheap version of vanilla flavor, is extracted from the by-products of wood processing.

Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, explained it this way: "A natural flavor is not necessarily more healthful or purer than an artificial one. When almond flavor -- benzaldehyde -- is derived from natural sources, such as peach and apricot pits, it contains traces of hydrogen cyanide, a deadly poison. Benzaldehyde derived by mixing oil of clove and amyl acetate does not contain any cyanide. Nevertheless, it is legally considered an artificial flavor and sells at a much lower price. Natural and artificial flavors are now manufactured at the same chemical plants, places that few people would associate with Mother Nature."

Mmmm, tasty! And, in some cases, they can cause unpleasant allergic reactions because people have no idea what, exactly, theyre ingesting

I have to admit, it was disappointing to be assaulted by such a nasty, artificial taste when I bit into my "gourmet marshmallow." I fully expected to be disheartened by the superiority of this (apparently quite successful) competitor's product. The whole problem with their candy is that they use flavorings that are artificial, no matter what the FDA says. And you can taste 'em.

I use whole vanilla beans and real Tahitian vanilla extract in my marshmallows, because I honestly want them to taste good. I don't want to save money by adding wood-pulp-derived fake vanilla and "marshmallow flavor" and then turn out a product that's less than the best I can make. I also dip them in chocolate or roll them in toasted coconut rather than offer them plain, because the best way to keep naked marshmallows from sticking together is to coat them in corn starch, which creates a rather unpleasant dusty sensation on the lips -- another problem with these gourmet marshmallows that I purchased.

The reason for this diatribe isn't to thump my chest and claim that my marshmallows are the best on the market. I haven't tried any of the others, and some of them sound quite marvelous. It's really to point out something that's bothered me for a long time -- that "natural flavors" often aren't, and slapping the words "all natural" on a label when the makers know full well that they're spiking their product with fake flavors is unethical.

Something as simple and as fun as a marshmallow shouldn't be hiding any unpleasant secrets, you know?

On Stabilizing Ganache

Baking and confectionery is, more than any other area of cooking, as much science as it is art. Leavening is affected by acids, for example, which means that adding sour cream to a cake recipe can make it go all sideways if you don't adjust measurements. And sugar is a bizarre, fascinating substance that has properties which can confound even a seasoned chef.

For example -- have you read the Kurt Vonnegut novel "Cat's Cradle?" In it, there's a substance called Ice-Nine, described in Wikipedia as "a more stable polymorph of water than common ice (Ice Ih) which instead of melting at 0° Celsius (32° Fahrenheit), melts at 45.8°C (114.4°F). When ice-nine comes into contact with liquid water below 45.8°C, it acts as a crystal 'seed', and causes the solidification (freezing) of the entire body of water which quickly crystallizes as ice-nine."

Crystal sugar behaves in a similar manner. I'll avoid going into scientific details that I'd probably get wrong in translation anyway, but if you've ever made candy (like, say, fudge) on the stovetop and read directions that tell you to wash down the sides of the pan as you go so that there are no sugar crystals remaining, that's because re-introducing crystallized sugar to the cooked sugar will cause the crystals to reform, like Ice-Nine. The result is gritty, grainy fudge.

In the case of ganache -- a combination of chocolate and heavy cream -- there's a whole lot of alchemical magic in the combination of sugars and fats that, when done correctly, results in a decadently smooth, rich mixture that can be used as truffle filling, beaten and then spread between cake layers, or melted and poured as a glaze. I've never had any problems with ganache until I tried using super-dark, 72 percent bittersweet chocolate. Suddenly, every batch separates -- instead of looking smooth and glossy, it looks congealed and grainy, and when it cools there's streaks of fat on the top. Ugh. (See bad ganache, right.)

What I have is emulsification gone wrong. If I wanted, I could try and repair it -- it can be done, sometimes, by melting half the ganache and chilling the other half,  then slowing introducing the warm ganache to the cold. But what I want is for it to not happen in the first place. Which means that I need to either a) give up on using super-dark chocolate, or b) figure out how to stabilize the mixture.

Research leads me to believe that the answer is invert sugar, which is sucrose that has been broken down into two simple sugars (glucose and fructose) by the introduction of acid like cream of tartar or lemon juice. It's used in fondant to maintain a creamy, non-grainy consistancy, so I think it'll do the trick here. By adding it to the ganache, the sugars in the chocolate won't crystallize and should remain suspended in such a way that the fats don't separate.

At least, that's the theory. We'll see what happens. Updates as the story develops.