Happy New Year! Are you back? We are well and truly back. Christmas is just a slightly hazy memory now. But I finally get the January stuff.  This was my first Christmas off in many many years and I now understand why Dry January is a thing and why Veganuary is so popular because I’M DONE. Normally, I’m still lurking around January with a glass of wine, trying to convince friends to stay and finish off the cheese, but this year… I get it. I’m on the sparkling water and the steamed veg and the long walks and the lists of things I want to achieve. 

Which is why it’s so handy that we’ve now launched our new VEGAN marshmallow. Yup, that has been on the annual list of ‘things I want to achieve’ for so long I should have had it engraved.  To say we've been working on this for a long time would be an understatement- it's been years of failed batches and tears- but we did it. And it’s a stunner. It was back in Autumn when the lovely Juliet Sear asked me to whip up a vegan mallow for her Beautiful Bakes series on ITV that I pulled out my latest trial batch and got busy perfecting it.

She wanted to top off her S’mores cupcake and it would be impossible to resist such a dreamy collaboration. Juliet creates gorgeous, inventive cakes and this recipe is a set to be a classic- gooey, chocolately and dripping with freshly torched vegan marshmallow.  Now, that’s not always that easy because vegan marshmallows tend not to toast very well. That’s often the problem with vegan confectionery. It’s close but it’s not quite there… it's tricky to create a mallow that's soufflé light and carries the warm taste of fresh vanilla pods, that has that satisfying 'bounce' of a mallow but still toasts to the perfect caramelised crunch on the outside. But, guess what? We're there. And I couldn’t be prouder.

This is a marshmallow that everyone can enjoy.

So I’m trialling it… To see what you think. 
I can’t produce this in all my flavours just yet - the Ph levels in the fruit has an less than complementary affect on the gelatine- making them less light and fluffy than I would like. Mallows shouldn't be dense.. But these are the flavours that work best… Organic Vanilla Bean, Toasted Coconut and gorgeously Dark Cocoa. And I can’t use my big mixers for whipping them up either- the fluff needs to be strictly and consistently temperature controlled so these special mallows need to be made in small batches.... for the moment.  So get them whilst you can because Dry January/ Veganuary can’t be too boring now can it? 

Sometimes you’ve got to make room for a little S’more....