Video: Soft centres of a Marshmallow world

Marshmallows are a curious affair. Mention the confectionery to most people and they will think of the mass-produced sickly-sweet rather chewy cylindrical sweets which either adorn the top of a frothy hot chocolate or are fit only for roasting over the campfire.

But hard at work at the back of Rawdon Village Bakery in West Yorkshire, Oonagh Simms is busy reinventing the humble marshmallow.

A heady aroma of elderflower and passion fruit mixed with a slight hint of gin, yes gin, emanates from the kitchen. The air is thick with icing sugar as Oonagh skillfully tosses the enticing and, rather large, cubes of marshmallow she made earlier into a mix of icing sugar and corn flour.

These are no ordinary marshmallows. these are gourmet marshmallows and they are already taking the confectionery world by storm.

They are the brainchild of young Yorkshire chocolatier Oonagh, and her business partner Kim Galloway, who together form Smart and Simms.

“I always loved cooking, particularly making chocolate. I never really ate sweet things as a child, but I loved making them. It was my mum who really got me into cooking; it was a big part of family life,” says Oonagh, who has an older brother and sister.

“When I left school I was either going to become a chocolatier or a dentist.”

She followed her heart and at the age of just 18 moved to Paris to work with some of the city’s top chocolatiers. She returned to the UK in 2011 and settled in London.

It was in late October of the same year that Kim walked into The Portobello Star in West London where Oonagh was sitting. Kim ordered a drink and the two women got chatting.

It soon emerged that they both had a love of all things French and confectionery –related.

A few drinks later, the two had the idea to combine Kim’s food and drink industry knowledge with Oonagh’s expert hands.

“I had tried to make chocolate at home before and so I asked Oonagh if she’d teach me how to temper chocolate,” explains Kim, whose background is in the commercial side of the food and drink industry. “Then we just said ‘let’s go into business together’. We came up with the name Smart and Simms but we didn’t even know what we were going to make.”

“We just needed to decide on a product,” continues Oonagh, who came up with the idea of gourmet marshmallows. “They are big in France and I’d been making them there for a few years.”

“But I vetoed the idea,” admits Kim. “I just didn’t think they were the right thing.”

Instead Oonagh worked on the idea of making mini cakes but the pair soon realised they were far too labour intensive.

“They were beautiful and so cute, but they took up so much time,” says Oonagh.

And then someone sent Kim and Oonagh a cutting from the New York Times which said that marshmallows were the latest confectionery craze in the Big Apple.

“I had to eat my words,” admits Kim and so they went into production, initially in the small kitchen in Kim’s Shepherd’s Bush flat at the beginning of last year, where they “started messing around with flavours”.

The idea was to create marshmallows as far removed from the mass produced ones in packets as possible and to experiment with a range of exciting flavours.

“We decided to make them quite big so that they would compete with things like a brownie or a piece of cake but with with far less calories,” says Oonagh. “Although the principles are pretty much the same as those used to make marshmallows years ago, we wanted to show people you can use interesting flavours and that they could be a light and indulgent treat.”

They did have a few disasters along the way but soon got their first batch perfect which they sold on a stall at Portobello Market close to the bar where they first met. That was just over a year ago, and neither could have predicted how their fledgling business would take off. They still have their successful stall on Portobello Market, but they are now getting interest from top exclusive food halls in London as well as a healthy online business. Quite soon it became apparent to the pair that the kitchen they were using wasn’t large enough for the growing business and so they decided to move production up to Yorkshire.

“I grew up in Yorkshire and mum and dad live round the corner from Rawdon Village Bakery. So we I approached the owners Glenn and Helen to see if we could use the bakery’s kitchen when they didn’t need it,” explains Oonagh. “They were amazing, as were mum and dad who said I could stay with them during the week.”

Oonagh starts work at 11am when the baking has finished. She then sets about creating her marshmallow masterpieces.

She starts by mixing fruit juices, a minimum of 35 per cent, and sugar syrup (glucose) together in a large mixer, one of Smart and Simm’s first investments.

She then whips beef gelatin for 15 minutes – the secret to how she gets her marshmallows to have a light, cloud-like consistency. They are then allowed to set before each large slab is turned out on to an evil-looking cutter which resembles an industrial scale hard-boiled egg slicer.

Once sliced into cubes Oonagh tosses them into the icing sugar/cornflour mix and then packs them neatly, ready for the courier to speed them down to London. The process is then repeated many times over. On average Oonagh makes 2,500 marshmallows a week, although over the summer and autumn months Smart and Simms took their wares to a number of food and drink trade shows which saw her making more than 5,000 a week.

“It’s fairly repetitious,” she admits. “But I find it really relaxing. I also get to chat with the regulars who come into the bakery who ask what I making. They are often intrigued by the flavour combinations.” And not without reason.

While raspberry and Champagne (my favourite) and passion fruit and ginger (Oonagh’s favourite) are pretty understandable combinations, on the 
day I visit Rawdon Village Bakery Oonagh has a batch of Blueberry and Portobello Red Gin on the go and is working on a 
Wild Turkey Bourbon, cranberry and stuffing flavour. She was also planning some bacon and maple syrup for a forthcoming meat trade fair. She does admit that some flavour just don’t work. Don’t mention the olive oil, basil and lemon experiment.

“It really works in a chocolate,” promises Oonagh, “but not in a marshmallow.”

However, they normally stick to eight summer/spring flavours and four winter.

“We are also planning some special flavours for Christmas, including a hot chocolate pack.”

But it isn’t just the flavours and the texture that make Smart and Simms marshmallows attractive.

“They are fat-free, gluten-free and are only around 40 calories, you can’t say that about many confectionery treats,” says Oonagh. “They are pretty-guilt free on a number of levels,” say Kim who also has a full-time job in London as well as being half of Smart and Simms.

One area which has stumped Smart and Simms so far however is a vegetarian version. “The only real substitute for gelatin which is vegetarian is agar jelly, but when you try to incorporate it into the marshmallow mixture it changes the texture to make it quite unpleasant,” explains Oonagh. “Food scientists are trying to come up with an alternative and when they do it will be amazing for us. We’d be able to make a product that would be fat-free, dairy-free, and suitable for vegetarians.”

The marshmallows are large because they are meant to be eaten one at a time.

“Rather than picking up a brownie or a flap jack, we’d like to see people one of our marshmallows instead and that seems to be what people are doing.”

They sell for £1.50 each, four for £5 or a box of six is £6 and have a shelf life of three months. Business may be doing well, but it looks set to get even more acclaim in the near future. The Marshmallowists have been asked to appear on Paul Hollywood’s (he of the Great British Bake Off) new series. Filming was due to start shortly after we met, with the BBC Daytime series expected to be aired later this year.

• www.themarshmallowists.co.uk