2 Things You'll Never Find in Our Gourmet Marshmallows (& Why It Makes Our Job Harder)

We could make our lives a lot easier. We choose not to. Here's what's never going in the bag, and what we use instead.

1. No Artificial colors.

If one of our handcrafted marshmallows is a bright, beautiful color, it's because a real ingredient made it that way.

Our Strawberry Rose marshmallow is bright pink because of real strawberry purée. Our Blueberry Lemon Thyme marshmallow is purple because of real blueberries (roasted for 3.5 hours). And our Key Lime Pie marshmallow is NOT green, because real lime juice and zest don't turn things green. 

The sprinkles on our Peppermint marshmallows and our MEEPS marshmallows? Those come from our partner Supernatural, who we are fully obsessed with. They use only natural dyes in everything they make. A perfect match.

2. No Artificial flavorings.

Gosh, it would make my job SO much easier if I could just add a teaspoon of "Buttered Rum Flavoring" to our marshmallow base. It exists. It's what most buttered rum products taste like. Aka... like a flavoring, not the actual thing. Believe me, there's a flavoring for just about everything.

It would also require zero adjustments to our recipe. Zero.

But instead, we use real rum and real butter... which require a total overhaul of the science and the process to make sure the marshmallow is still fully set, flavorful, and shelf stable. Real ingredients don't always place nice with marshmallows the way artificial flavorings do. Every "real" swap is its own R&D puzzle.

I'll take that headache over a flavor shortcut any day.