Monday 6 August 2012

Posh Top Hats


marshmallow chocolate


You may have seen my recent recipe for Golden Syrup Marshmallows. If not, don’t worry, you can check it out here! But I was so impressed with the results, I wanted to try pimping my mallows.

Growing up, at birthday parties, a staple on the food table was a creation called Top Hats – a petit four case with a small amount of chocolate in the bottom, a marshmallow placed in that, then a wee dollop of chocolate on top of the mallow, finished off with a smartie (orange ones were always the best!). Now these were always my favourite at parties and I wondered if these could translate well to the adult world – why should kids tea parties have all the fun?



So armed with my marshmallow recipe (see link above) I divided the mallow mix into three and coloured each division in colours that matched my nice new cupcakes cases. I wanted to use cupcake cases, as the petit four ones were always too small – so why not make a larger grown -up size?? I put the mallow mix into three icing bags. I had drawn circles on a piece of greaseproof paper which were slightly smaller than the cupcake bases and proceeded to pipe circles in decreasing sizes on the greased paper, resulting in multi-colour mallow pyramids. I dusted these liberally with my combo of icing sugar and cornflour and left them overnight.



The next day, they were nice and set. So I gently peeled each one from the paper and dusted again lightly. I then took some melted plain chocolate and spooned a small amount into the cases and placed the mallows on top. I then finished each one off with a small amount of chocolate on top. Now I looked for Giant Smarties and could not find them anywhere – have they been discontinued I wondered? So I opted for peanut M&M’s instead, placed them on top and let the chocolate set. The result was a chocolate mallow nutty mouthful of pleasure! Too good for the kids…



Sometimes I get blank faces when I say Top Hats – other people seem to have had their own names for them over the country and elsewhere – so I would love to know if you had ‘top hats’ and if you did – what did you call them?? Leave your answer below ta!


11 comments:

  1. I've never heard of top hats and now feel that my childhood was deprived and meaningless.

    It's not every day you get to read the phrase "pimping my mallows" - well done!

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    1. Ooh, maybe top hats are rarer than I thought! But yes, I loved pimping my mallows ;)

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  2. This post has got me worried. First, I've never heard of top hats or anything like them and I'm feeling left out. Second, I'm really upset to know that you couldn't get giant Smarties. What's the world coming to? Your pimped mallows do look great, though.
    Were orange smarties the best? I'm willing to believe you, but I thought most civilised people agreed that the purple one was the height of sophistication. I think we can all agree that the yellow one was never the smartie of choice.

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    1. What a shame - you really have missed out not ever having had a top hat! And of course orange were the best, possibly not for aesthetic reasons, but orange were the only flavoured ones!
      But if you don't want to make the posh ones, please just use ordinary mallows and smarties - you will love 'em ;) thanks for following!!

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  3. I've heard of top hats, just can't have them now because of the gelatine :(

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    1. I can't believe you haven't heard of top hats and you live in Dundee. Amanda in my office is a Fifer and she knows what they are - I will need to try veggie gelatine at some point now!

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  4. I've had them, as you said at kids' parties, but never knew what they were called, but certainly didn't know them as top hats. (I'm originally from Glasgow, though now living in London). I've never attempted making my own marshmallow, although it is my favourite sweet, well one of them anyway, but you have inspired me and as I have several veggie friends, I may attempt it with the vegegel.

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    1. Hi, please let me know how the vegegel mallows turn out! Glad you know of the top hats (although without a name!) - must be a Scottish thing!!

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  5. I never knew that these were called top hats! We had them at our birthday parties as children (and at my 21st!) in the shape of the number correlating to our age that year. I just thought it was something our mum did (she didn't bother with the cases or the chocolate in the bottom though - your first element of 'posh'!). Thanks for letting me know the real name!

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    1. PS Not Scottish! South West of England!

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    2. I love the idea of forming them into the age of the birthday person! Thanks for sharing:)

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