shweets.com

To anyone who has been following my quest in launching this new venture, I wanted to just say it’s been put on hold yet again. My mother, recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, my nephew, having some complications with his epilepsy medication, Maverick (my other company) going through some growing pains, and a whole host of animal troubles, have finally taken their toll on my time and schedule.

I have not had any opportunities to experiment in the kitchen, but most importantly I have had zero time to concentrate on building the web site that will be vital to my business. This is rather unfortunate because USA Today just recently did an entire article on gourmet marshmallows.

Such is life though, and bottom line, my family takes priority over all things business related. I appreciate your continued interest, and will soon (hopefully) be back in the kitchen creating delicious treats for all.

My mother has a blog of her own sherryruslink.com if you would be interested in monitoring her progress through the never ending trials of life with cancer.

I’ve been having issues with the animals. Cats being attacked by some wild critter, Gauge the dog had a seizure, Pistol the horse foundered up again. I’ve got 5 inside cats and 1 outside cat they’ve all been attacked at least once and three of them are on medication for that and various other ailments. Two more cats (a momma and baby) have arrived, and I’m feeding them. They’re feral though. I sure wished I could get my hands on them to get them spayed! We don’t need a bunch of wild cats running around!

Oh, I digress…this is Shweets, not my blog.

Anyway, I have yet to make it into town to find some packaging options because I’ve been swamped under playing nurse to a bunch of critters, a kid and my main squeeze. Once I get myself sorted, I’ll be making some more marshmallows and another batch or two of my new chocolate biscuits. The animals are just taking a bit of priority at the moment.

On a side note, I have come up with some great cat and dog food recipes for all y’all who may be afraid to feed commercial foods imported from China. After Gauge’s seizure, I had had enough and was freaked out enough to bump up my normal cat food recipe to have enough to feed a 90 pound Chocolate Lab. He’s my baby. He gets anything he wants.  Including homemade food made special by momma. LOL!

I have just about biscuited myself out the past week or so, and that’s really saying something for a Texas gal. I spent the better part of my early adult life hunting for the perfect biscuit recipe. I found a couple that could be called perfect biscuits, and they all involved a little bit of yeast. I like my biscuits a little on the cakey side, not too dry or crumbly, but firm enough to hold up to some serious gravy drowning. Afterall, I know how to make the perfect pan gravy, and that’s really what biscuits and gravy are all about. The gravy!

But when I went looking for a recipe to convert to a chocolate biscuit, things changed. Adding the chocolate dried out my tried and true recipes, flattened others, and some were either too soft like cake or too dense like brownies. But lo and behold…I think I found a good combination. A little bit of yeast, a little bit of self-rising flour, and enough cocoa to punch it up and honey…let me tell you…I ain’t never had nothing this good. Oh My GoodNESS.

When you bite into one of these bad lads…it roars “I’m a biscuit” and then purrs “Mmmm, but taste my chocolate”. Slather on some butter and engulf. We’re going to be trying some with my homemade chocolate cherry ice cream, covered in hot fudge cherry butter sauce.

As Ma always said….Dear Gussy!

Yeehaw!

As expected, many of the deliveries made their destination practically overnight. Had I sent them during the week, the delivery time would have been fantastic.

I believe Set A, predicted to melt, did so, and none too pleasing to the eye. Brenda was kind enough to shoot me some pix and none of the marshmallows made it through unscathed, but Set C came through the best. I do believe good packaging would have saved Set B. Set A was doomed before they even left.

Set A is special, and overall (in my opinion) had (when fresh) the best flavor and texture. Of course that does not matter when the recipient receives a wad of marshmallow cream. No, Set A should be set aside for winter time and then carefully dipped into the finest chocolate. Oh baby. They would be surely sinful then.

Packaging. It’s going to come down to that. I need to find a nice box, a nice tray large enough to handle the size of the marshmallows, and some pads. I really am not sure if an acrylic box wouldn’t be a better route to take. Pour the marshmallows directly into it, let it set, put it in a package, and mail — uncut. They would arrive in the best shape that way. Don’t know how the recipients would like that though and they’re pricier than traditional boxes.

Decisions, decisions.

Just wanted to say thanks again for volunteering. I appreciate your help. Taste testing is easy but there is a method to my madness. Enclosed are three sets of marshmallows. Each has been made with similar ingredients, but in different ways. They are all Cherry, Chocolate, Pecan.

Set A is very soft. Very, very soft. I’m concerned they won’t make the trip in this heat. I didn’t worry over packaging this trip because I needed to keep them separated from each other. Plus, if they melted…you’d need an easy way to toss them or spoon them out. J I am concerned about their travel. I’m afraid the cherries will leak through, leaving them looking terrible. They’ll still taste great, but looks are important!

Each set was made with increasing levels of Gelatine. Set C should be the firmest of all. Cherries were chopped or minced. Pecans were either on top or mixed thoroughly.

Please be honest and detailed in your testing. I need to know how well they travel, and whether to dust in different mixtures or coat with chocolate (during the winter) so they travel easier. They are dusted, for handling, with confectioners sugar, cocoa and a small amount of corn starch.

The Trip:

1. Did the package arrive with all marshmallows in tact? Did they melt?
2. How was the appearance of the marshmallows? Did they look good enough to eat?
3. Of the three sets, did one travel better than the others?
4. How much time did it take to arrive? They left Texas 8/11/07.

The Texture/Taste:

1. Which set did you think had the best texture? Why?
2. Did all the marshmallows have pleasing tastes?
3. Did you prefer the chunkier cherries, or minced?
4. Would you prefer chunks of chocolate or thoroughly mixed in? Or Dipped?
5. Should the pecans be larger?

Appearance:

1. How did they look on arrival?
2. Did they look good enough to eat or had they deteriorated too much?
3. Did they melt?
4. Did they look large enough?
5. Would you prefer to cut your own? Receiving one large slab to cut yourself?

Cost:
Confections are typically sold by the pound. You received 12 marshmallows. A pound will consist of 12 to 15 marshmallows. Due to the ingredients, these would be my ‘premium’ product line. What is the most you would pay for one pound of premium marshmallows?

1. $15
2. $20
3. $25
4. $30

Would you pay more if they were dipped in chocolate?

Packaging:
I have not yet made any decisions regarding packaging.

1. Would you prefer to receive your marshmallows in a hard candy box, like a Whitmans-type box?
2. If I did not cut the marshmallows but instead sent a one pound slab, would you prefer it to be in a box, a clear plastic fancy bag tied with ribbon, or a pretty container you could keep?

Overall:

What was your impression overall of the marshmallows? Any further comments are much appreciated!

Future Tests:

In addition to the chocolate cherry marshmallows, I also make caramel, chocolate pecan swirl and an Andes Candy chocolate mint version. During Christmas I also make a peppermint candy one. Would you be interested in also testing these flavors?

Thank you so much for your help!!

Today, I finally got the site transferred, WordPress loaded and actually made a mental map of how I need to set it up and where WordPress will fit into the picture. I love using WP for simple sites, and even tho this will be a shopping/retail establishment online, the main guts of the site are just simple bits — easily handled by WP.

Plus, I’d like to be able to use the blog feature of WP to maintain my recipes section. Oh, don’t get too excited! I’m not going to give out my trade secret recipes. Just friendly ones that I run across but don’t plan to sell.

I’m still finalizing my main marshmallow recipes and plan to mail to my Web Dev friends by this weekend. The first batch didn’t turn out as planned, rather weak actually, but sooooo tasty. They would be perfect if chocolate covered. But this is August, in Texas, so that is but a mere pipe dream. Just wait for December! They’ll be a sure fire hit!