Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Genutine wins!

I recently got some pure carrageenan to see if I could recreate Genutine with other gums. My best effort produced marshmallow fluff. It seems locust bean gum is essential. Locust bean gum is also very difficult to find and expensive too. L'Epicerie carries it.

Bottom line, get the Genutine. Save some money. Save the hassle. Make marshmallows with Genutine.

No, I'm not on their payroll. :-)

11 comments:

  1. Quick question- What sort of carrageenan is this? Kappa, Iota, or Lambda?

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  2. Kappa carrageenan works best and, I believe, is the most commonly available one. Check out the, "where to buy ingredients" page here:

    http://veganmarshmallows.blogspot.com/2009/04/where-can-i-find-these-ingredients.html

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  3. FYI, carob bean gum is the same as locust bean gum. So you could try looking under that name.

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  4. Seriously, there must be some way to make the stuff. It's $42! How is it saving me money?

    I understand hassle though, I tried to make them tonight with what I thought were the right ingredients. I guess the lady at our natural food store was wrong!!!

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  5. Trust me, the amount of money you will spend trying to figure it out will greatly exceed the cost of Genutine. Of course, that's what people told me when I said I wanted to make vegan marshmallows. You are welcome to carry the torch if you are up for the challenge.

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  6. Gentuine is not something easily obtainable in the UK. Dr Oetker Vege-Gel is a carageean and locust bean gum vegetarian gelatine that has dextrose and some preservatives in it. Could you advise if this is worth trying? Does Gentuine have any specific ingredients that this one does not?

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  7. Vege-Gel sounds like it would work. Dextrose is just sugar. The rest of the ingredients are the same. I would give it a go! Let us know how it goes. Good luck!

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  8. I substituted agar powder for the genutine and was very pleased with the results.

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    Replies
    1. How did you do this, my marshmallows turned out not really fluffy...

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  9. Wow! Great breakthrough! Did you used equal amounts?

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  10. Hi, Yesterday I have made my another try with marshmallow. I live in Poland and we do not have Genutine Gelatine here, only agar and link to this store in US doesn't work. So I've decided to use 150g ready powder of jelly, which contains caragen. All was ok, I got a really fluffy and thick mixture ( like on your photos ) but when I was trying to cut it the next day, it partly melted. So I have three jars of marshmallow icing. Nightmare. It was my third try, the first one with carrageenan jelly. I admit, when I put that jelly to syroup I didn't get soft ball stage moment. Is it possible that was the reason of my failure? Or simply not enough of carrageenan?

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