Salted Nut Roll recipe with vegan marshmallows?!
Answers: I've been trying to find a recipe online for Salted Nut Rolls using vegan marshmallows but I'm not having any luck. I've got a recipe which uses regular marshmallows but I'm wondering if it would still be any good using vegan marshmallows. Has anyone tried doing this or have a recipe?
I'm sorry nobody else has answered your question. I'm going to answer it, in rather a roundabout way. I'm going to discuss a few ways of getting the result you want.
Not to be glib, but I think part of the price of being a vegan is learning to create your own foods. Years ago I was a vegetarian, then macrobiotic. I also had a gluten allergy and couldn't eat most grains. You can become quite inventive with food if you work at it. Of course, you may have a few failed recipes too, but that's the price of tuition.
I went to chef school and learned to make, among other things, vegan baked goods. I learned a lot about the chemistry of food, so I could fake my own vegetarian, vegan, and/or gluten-free recipes.
Here's what I know about regular marshmallows: They are a very simple confection, just a sugar syrup beaten into a rather thick gelatin mixture. As the gelatin cools and solidifies, it traps air and becomes lighter. The sugar syrup thickens as it cools also, and you get this foam of sugar and gelatin.
I suspect you could make your own vegan marshmallows with agar or carageenan, similarly dissolved in a small amount of water. Because agar really needs to be cooked some before you work with it, you should boil the agar mixture, then cool it some, before you beat the sugar syrup mixture in.
The recipes I saw online for nut rolls used either marshmallow cream or melted marshmallows, with more powdered sugar kneaded in. What they are doing in these recipes with this odd technique, and don't tell you, is they are creating a sort of bastardized fondant. A fondant is similar to marshmallows, except almost no air is beaten into the mixture. A fondant is a sugar syrup with a small amount of gelatin (in your case agar or carageenan) mixed in. Then the syrup is poured onto a cold surface and worked in a certain way, almost like taffy, to create an amorphous substance with lots of little sugar crystals. The center of a regular nut roll is fondant. Another candy that is essentially fondant is (traditionally made) fudge. You can read online to learn more about how to make fondant and/or fudge.
So, in the recipes you likely read online, you would be melting marshmallows, then kneading in powdered sugar. The main thing you would need to be careful about, is the possibility that with the substitution of vegan marshmallows, that you would need either a lot more or a lot less powdered sugar. This is strictly a matter of experience; it can't be said in advance. The other thing I think you need to be careful about is melting the marshmallows. You don't want to overcook them. Just proceed cautiously.
There are other issues here: Don't most nut rolls have caramel? I don't have a good vegan caramel recipe. Perhaps you can find one elsewhere. I would suggest starting simple, with 1 cup of brown sugar, and 1 stick (1/2 cup) of margarine. Melt together, then boil 2-3 minutes. Again, this is a matter for experimentation until you get it right. You may have to experiment with the caramel until you make one with the right consistency.
Finally, there's the assembly. Rather than make rolls, I think I'd make layers. How about sprinkling peanuts on the bottom of a small square dish, then topping with a layer of the fondant mixture, then a layer of caramel, topped with peanuts? Chill for an hour, then cut into squares or bars with a sharp knife dipped in hot water.
Good luck with your recipe. If you have questions about how to proceed, you can send me an email through my Answers profile.
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