Homemade Marshmallows with Beef Gelatin, No Corn Syrup (+ Rose Variation)

Jump to recipe Rose variation Rose monograph Are they healthy? FAQ

Homemade marshmallows taste better than store-bought marshmallows and take about 30 minutes of hands-on time. This recipe uses grass-fed, grass-finished beef gelatin and cane sugar or maple syrup, with no corn syrup. The plain vanilla version comes first. Further down is a rose petal variation I made for a Valentine's Day party, and it went fast.

Key takeaways

• No corn syrup. The syrup is cane sugar (or maple syrup), water, and salt, cooked to 240°F (116°C).
• Powdered beef gelatin from grass-fed cattle gives the marshmallows their bounce.
• The method has six steps: bloom, cook, whip, set, cut, coat.
• A candy or meat thermometer removes the guesswork. Soft-ball stage is the target.
• Steep the water into rose petal tea first to make rose marshmallows.
• One batch makes about as much as a standard bag from the store.

This article is for education only and does not diagnose, treat, or replace medical care. I am a clinical herbalist, not a physician. The rose monograph describes traditional use and recorded cautions, not medical advice. Speak with a qualified provider before adding herbs to your routine if you are pregnant, nursing, managing a diagnosed condition, or taking medication. Individual responses vary.

Homemade marshmallow recipe with cane sugar or maple syrup

Evidence: my own tested recipe, made many times. Amino acid facts on gelatin come from Ray Peat's published work.

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons unflavored powdered gelatin (about 3 packets). I use grass-fed, grass-finished beef gelatin.
• 1 cup filtered water, split into two ½ cup portions
• 1½ cups cane sugar, or maple syrup for a maple marshmallow
• ¼ teaspoon sea salt (I use Redmond's)
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• For dusting: ¼ cup powdered sugar plus 2 tablespoons arrowroot starch. Cornstarch tastes the same, but I prefer arrowroot because corn crops are prone to mold contamination.

Equipment

• Stand mixer with the whisk attachment, or a large bowl and a hand mixer
• Medium saucepan
• Candy thermometer or instant-read meat thermometer
• 8x8 or 9x13 pan, wax paper, and a neutral oil or butter for greasing

Instructions

1. Bloom the gelatin. Pour ½ cup of the water into the mixer bowl. Sprinkle the powdered gelatin over the surface and whisk lightly. Let it sit for 10 minutes until it thickens.
2. Cook the syrup. Combine the cane sugar, the remaining ½ cup of water, and the salt in the saucepan. Stir once to dissolve, then stop stirring. Heat over medium-high until a thermometer reads 240°F (116°C), the soft-ball stage. This takes about 8 minutes. Scrape down any sugar crystals on the sides of the pan with a wet pastry brush if you see them.
3. Prepare the pan. While the syrup cooks, line the pan with wax paper and grease it lightly so the slab releases later.
4. Whip. Turn the mixer to low and pour the hot syrup down the sides of the bowl in a thin stream, away from the whisk. Once it is all in, raise the speed to high. Beat for 12 minutes until the mixture is white, glossy, and tripled in volume. Add the vanilla in the last minute.
5. Set. Pour the fluff into the pan right away and smooth it with a greased spatula. Leave it uncovered at room temperature for at least 6 hours. Overnight is easiest.
6. Cut and coat. Mix the powdered sugar and arrowroot in a small bowl. Dust a cutting board, turn the slab out, and cut squares with a greased knife or pizza cutter. Toss each piece in the dusting mix so they do not stick together.

The vanilla marshmallows are ready to eat as soon as they are cut. If you want them firmer for toasting, leave the cut pieces out for another day before storing.

Start here The Ray Peat Diet Guide Every food he mentioned, his hormone framework in order, and links to his interview audio transcripts, and articles. Open the guide →

Rose marshmallows

Evidence: my own tested variation on the recipe above.

Rose petals turn the plain vanilla recipe into a Valentine's or Mother's Day treat. The only change is the water. You steep it into a rose petal tea first, then use that tea in place of plain water in both the gelatin and the syrup. Everything else stays the same.

You need one extra ingredient: 5 grams of dried organic rose petals. I order mine from Mountain Rose Herbs (affiliate link, which earns me a small commission at no extra cost to you).

1. Make the rose petal tea. Heat the full 1 cup of water until it is almost boiling. Remove it from the heat, add the petals, and cover the pot so the aromatic oils stay in the tea. Steep for 10 minutes, then strain.
2. Split the tea. Set ½ cup aside for the syrup. Put the other ½ cup in the fridge or freezer until it is at least room temperature. Colder is better for blooming.
3. Use the tea as the water. Bloom the powdered gelatin in the cooled ½ cup of rose tea. Use the warm ½ cup in the sugar syrup. Follow the main recipe from step 2 onward.

The finished marshmallows are pale pink with a light floral taste. A few crushed dried petals pressed into the top of the slab before it sets look pretty and add a little more rose flavor.

Rose herbal monograph

Evidence: traditional use recorded in Western, Ayurvedic, and Chinese herbal texts. Human clinical data on rose petal tea is limited.

Rosa centifolia, Rosa gallica, Rosa canina
Family: Rosaceae. Sanskrit: Shatapatri.

Energetics and actions

• Taste: sweet, bitter, pungent, sour
• Temperature: cooling, mild, neutral
• Traditional actions: nervine, astringent, carminative, aphrodisiac

Key constituents

Volatile oils (mainly geraniol), tannins, flavonoids, vitamins A, C, and E, and minerals including iron, zinc, and calcium.

Traditional use

• Emotional balance. Herbalists have long used rose to soothe what the tradition calls the emotional heart, during periods of sensitivity, grief, or irritability.
• Cycle support. In Ayurveda, rose is used to cool excess Pitta, and it appears in formulas for the second half of the menstrual cycle.
• Digestion. Traditional texts describe rose as cooling to the digestive lining and supportive of fat metabolism.
• Skin. Rosewater is a common wash or mist for red, sensitive, or weathered skin.

Traditional preparations and amounts

Preparation	Traditional daily amount
Dried petals, as an infusion	1 to 10 g
Tincture (1:2)	5 to 15 ml
Rosewater	5 to 50 ml

Cautions on record for rose

Herbal safety texts advise caution during pregnancy because of the plant's traditional use for the menstrual cycle. Tannins can reduce iron absorption when tea is taken with an iron-rich meal or an iron supplement, so the two are usually separated by a few hours. If you take prescription medication, a pharmacist or clinical herbalist can check your list against any new herb.

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Are homemade marshmallows healthy?

Evidence: gelatin composition from Ray Peat's published articles. Field-death and grazing claims are attributed to the cited papers, which disagree with each other on scale.

They are still candy. The difference is what the candy is made of. Store-bought marshmallows are built on corn syrup and gelatin from conventional feedlot animals. These use cane sugar or maple syrup and gelatin from grass-fed, grass-finished cattle.

Gelatin is the reason I bother. Ray Peat wrote that gelatin is about 35 percent glycine and contains no tryptophan, and he argued that this amino acid pattern balances the muscle meat most of us eat in excess.¹ A batch of these marshmallows carries about 21 grams of it. Whether that adds up to a meaningful intake is a question for you and your own diet, but it is more than zero, which is what a bag from the store gives you.

Why I went back to animal foods

For years I was vegetarian and avoided red meat. Over time my skin got worse, I developed gut problems from the plant-based replacements I was eating, and I picked up more injuries from exercise. Those were my own experiences, not a study.

What changed my mind was reading about animal deaths in crop farming. Steven Davis at Oregon State estimated that mechanical harvest and field operations kill enough mice and other small animals per acre that a diet built on pasture-raised ruminants could cost fewer animal lives than a fully plant-based one.² Fischer and Lamey reviewed the available data in 2018 and concluded that nobody knows the true figure, that the largest published estimates are too high, and that the answer depends on unsettled questions such as whether animals taken by predators after harvest should be counted.³ What both papers agree on is that plant farming is not free of animal death, and the comparison is not as simple as it looks from the produce aisle.

That reading reshaped how I think about ethical eating. I now treat every animal product with respect and try to use as much of the animal as I can, which is part of why gelatin, tallow, and bone broth show up so often on this site.

The methane question

Cattle produce methane, and cattle on grass produce more of it per animal than cattle on grain, because forage ferments longer in the rumen. The picture changes when soil is counted. A Michigan State University study measured soil carbon on adaptive multi-paddock pasture for four years and found the pasture stored enough carbon to turn the grass-finishing phase into a net carbon sink, even though its raw emissions were higher than the feedlot's.⁴ The authors noted that the grazing system needed twice the land and that results from other regions were still needed. Well-managed grazing also improves soil structure and pasture biodiversity in ways a feedlot cannot.

My own approach is to eat locally and in season, choose organic produce, and buy animal foods from regenerative farms where I can. The cow behind the gelatin in this recipe lived on pasture, and that is the version of a marshmallow I am comfortable making.

Frequently asked questions

Evidence: practical answers from making this recipe many times.

Can I make marshmallows without corn syrup?

Yes, this is a corn syrup free recipe. Corn syrup is added to commercial marshmallows to stop the sugar from crystallizing. Cooking plain cane sugar syrup to 240°F (116°C) without stirring, and pouring it down the sides of the bowl in a slow stream, gets the same result without it.

Can I use maple syrup or honey instead of cane sugar?

Yes. Swap 1½ cups of maple syrup for the sugar to make maple marshmallows, or use honey for a honey marshmallow. Cook either one to the same 240°F (116°C) soft-ball stage. Both foam up and reach temperature faster than cane sugar, so stay at the stove.

What gelatin is best for marshmallows?

Unflavored powdered gelatin, not collagen peptides. Collagen peptides do not gel. I use beef gelatin from grass-fed, grass-finished cattle, and 3 tablespoons is the amount for this batch. Any powdered beef or pork gelatin will set the recipe.

How long do homemade marshmallows last?

About one week in an airtight container at room temperature. Do not refrigerate them, since the humidity makes them sticky. Letting the cut pieces dry uncovered for a day before you seal the container helps them keep longer.

Why are my homemade marshmallows sticky?

Three common causes: the syrup did not reach 240°F (116°C), the slab was not left to set long enough, or the pieces were not coated in enough of the powdered sugar and arrowroot mix. Humid weather also makes them tackier. More dusting fixes most cases.

Do homemade marshmallows work for s'mores?

Yes, though they are softer than store-bought marshmallows and melt faster over a flame. Leave the cut pieces out for a day or two so they firm up before roasting them.

Made a batch?

Tell me how they turned out in the comments. You can find more of my nourishing recipes here, or browse the shop for handmade herbal goods.

Sources

1. Peat R. Gelatin, stress, longevity. raypeat.com
2. Davis SL. The least harm principle may require that humans consume a diet containing large herbivores, not a vegan diet. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics. 2003;16(4):387-394. doi:10.1023/A:1025638030686
3. Fischer B, Lamey A. Field deaths in plant agriculture. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics. 2018;31(4):409-428. doi:10.1007/s10806-018-9733-8
4. Stanley PL, Rowntree JE, Beede DK, DeLonge MS, Hamm MW. Impacts of soil carbon sequestration on life cycle greenhouse gas emissions in Midwestern USA beef finishing systems. Agricultural Systems. 2018;162:249-258. doi:10.1016/j.agsy.2018.02.003 Authors are affiliated with Michigan State University; one co-author was with the Union of Concerned Scientists at publication.