For the past two months, I have had a song intermittently stuck in my head.  This is purely my own fault.

As soon as summer hits, I listen to every Beach Boys song that I have on my iPod at full blast.

This is my welcome in summer ritual and I’ve never regret doing it.  Until now.

I thought I had cracked it.  I thought it had gone, but as I was measuring out the 100ml of coconut rum that goes in these marshmallows (at 8.30am on a Saturday), it came back.

How do you get songs out of your head?  I’m trying by eating a lot of marshmallows.

Ingredients

100ml coconut rum (like Malibu)
20ml water
23gr powdered gelatine

1tbsp cornflour sifted with 2tbsp of icing sugar
Flavourless oil for greasing

160ml golden syrup
440gr caster sugar
Water

2 heaped tablespoons of toasted desiccated coconut
50gr milk or dark chocolate

Method

1, (Aruba, Jaimaca, ooh I wanna take her) Put the coconut rum, water and gelatine in the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with a whisk attachments, and give it a quick mix.  You need to leave the gelatine to absorb the liquid and “sponge”.

2, (Bemuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama) Brush a thin layer of oil on the bottom and sides of a seven inch square cake pan (I use a silicone bakeware for this but if you are going to use a metal cake pan, line it first with cling film, then oil that). Shake the cornflour and icing sugar combo mix around the pan, making sure it is completely covered.  Shake out the excess.

3, (Key Lago, Montego, baby why don’t we go) In a large saucepan, stir together the golden syrup, caster sugar and enough water to cover it.  Set this over a medium heat, clip on a sugar thermometer and stir until it starts to boil.  This needs to reach 130o/c.  If you see any little sugar crystals around the edge when you are boiling, carefully brush them out of the pan with a wet pastry brush. If you go over 130o/c, bad things will happen. The marshmallows will lose their classic chewiness and become kind of brittle and grainy.

4, (Off the Florida Keyes, there’s a place called Kokomo) When the syrup is up to temperature, turn on the stand mixer to a low/medium speed and carefully trickle the hot sugar into the bowl.  Take care not to hit the spinning whisk, you don’t want this spitting up into your face.

5, (That’s where you want to go, to get away from it all) When all the syrup is in, turn the mixer up to a medium/high speed and beat until it pales, increases in volume and has a texture that is like really sticky bubblegum. Scoop this out into the prepared pan and give it a little wiggle to help smooth the top.  Sprinkle the toasted coconut on top and gently press this down so you have a completely flat top.

6, (Bodies in the sand, tropical drink melting in your hand) Leave to cool and set for at least three hours.  Remove from the pan and slice. Melt the chocolate and drizzle over the top.  Leave this to cool until set and then enjoy.

(We’ll be falling in love, to the rhythm of the steel drum band, down in Kokomo)

•

I’m entering these into We Should Cocoa, a monthly chocolate challenge created by Choclette.  This month is hosted by Rebecca at BakeNQuilt who has set marshmallows as a task.  You can read all about We Should Cocoa and how to enter by clicking here.