In fact, here's a challenge: try to eat only things on a stick today.

Yup, today is Something On A Stick Day. So you can spend the day eating corn dogs, lollipops, and Popsicles. Actually, the Food Network show Unwrapped did a whole show about food on a stick (including corn dogs, Bugs Bunny Bars, and Key Lime Pie on a Stick), as did the show Ham on the Street (Caramel Apple Pie on a Stick!)

Of course, you'll want to end the day by toasting marshmallows over a fire (or, um, stove).

My roommate makes yams with marshmallows on top every Thanksgiving, and every Thanksgiving there are always a bag of them left over (really, two bags is too much for one bowl of sweet potatoes). So what can you do with them, besides eating them as a snack, putting them in hot chocolate, or toasting them on a campfire?

You can make Marshmallow Icing for cakes and other desserts. I usually go the canned Duncan Hines route for my frostings and icings, but this one actually seems rather easy.

If you're looking for something that's a little less energy-intensive than the usual Halloween "candy" recipes that require that you bake, fry, pop or mold, but is still seasonal and tasty, here's the recipe for you. Stick marshmallows onto 4 inch lollipop sticks and put in the freezer for fifteen minutes until they get firm. Melt one cup of white chocolate melts in a double-boiler slowly until they are liquid (you can use black or orange melts for greater Halloween effect).

Remove marshmallows from the freezer and swirl in the chocolate. Do it in layers to make it look like a mummy or create a peak at the top to make it look like a ghost. For further decorating instructions and other spooky recipes, check out Wanda's Halloween Cookbook.

Every Labor Day Weekend, I go off with some friends to a family camp down on the Chesapeake Bay. The first night we get there, the camp staff always lights a big bonfire for us and we stand around toasting marshmallows and making s'mores. Part of the fun of it is working to find that right angle and that perfect pocket of heat that will slowly brown the marshmallow instead of setting in ablaze, leaving you with a charred outside and a still-cold inside. I like that roasting marshmallows over an open fire is an activity that has been mostly unchanged for years and is one that requires little pre-planning or special equipment.

This is why I'm a little perplexed by this gadget I spotted being advertised today. It's called a Spinmallow and it is a motorized marshmallow toasting device. I think it's a clever idea and yet I can't help but feel sort of disappointed by it, that we can no longer just find a find a serviceable stick and rotate it ourselves.

What do you all think? Useless gadget or brilliant brainchild?

You thought that marshmallows were man-made? Think again.

As the Nancyland blog clearly shows, in real, undoctored photos, marshmallows are grown and harvested just like corn, coffee, or oranges. Though a lot of people might not realize that marshmallows, in their natural form, are as big as a Nissan Sentra. Nancyland has several pics of a farmer taking the giant marshmallows and placing them in a truck, where they will be taken to a facility and made smaller for consumption in hot chocolate, cereals, and the ends of sticks over a campfire.

Just Born is always expanding their Peeps lineup, as the sugar-coated marshmallows are one of their most popular products. Instead of only offering yellow chick Peeps at Easter, they have chicks, bunnies and egg shapes in a variety of colors and flavors. And for other holidays, they have themed Peeps, with hearts on Valentine's Day and trees at Christmas.

At Halloween, Just Born introduced cocoa-flavored black cat Peeps, which I passed on because I was somewhat put off by the color. I am a huge fan of Peeps, but I like my Peeps in the spring. While shopping this week, however, I came across Cocoa Bunny Peeps and, as they were Eastery-enough to meet my standards, I picked up a package for a taste test.

The important thing to note about these candies is that they are not chocolate marshmallows, despite the promising light chocolate color. They are merely cocoa-flavored and that flavoring is entirely limited to the sugary coating on the outside of the bunny. The subtle chocolate flavor didn't really do anything to enhance the Peep and, although I would eat them again, if I really want chocolate with my Peeps, I'll stick with Milk Chocolate Peep Eggs - or better yet, a dark chocolate Peeps s'more using a regular Peep.

For a closer look at the cocoa bunnies, click past the jump. *warning - the photo after the jump is graphic, and may not be suitable for all viewers*

So today is not only Valentine's Day, it's also a great day for hot chocolate (for much of the country, anyway...you stay classy San Diego). So let's combine the two and see what we get.

And that would be Hot Chocolate Cones! They're cocoa, mini marshmallows, mini chocolate chips, and a red gum drop placed inside cone-shaped cellophane wrappers. Makes a cool gift:

3/4 cup cocoa mix
two 6" x 12" cone-shaped cellophane bags
2 clear rubberbands
scissors
1/4 cup mini chocolate chips
3/4 cup mini marshmallows
1 large red gumdrop

We already had a brief discussion about the worst holiday foods and responses included canned cranberry sauce and fruitcake. But it's no fun to dwell on the negatives when you're supposed to be celebrating and spending time with your family, so why not think about the best holiday treats instead? What are those foods that you look forward to all year?

When it comes to store bought treats, peppermint bark and chocolate covered graham crackers always seem to be readily available, but the best holiday foods come from home. Here are some suggestions from around the blogosphere for holiday favorites that should make your menu this year:

• Jelly donuts, a.k.a. sufganiyah, are a standard for Hanukkah celebrations
• I'm partial to oven baked latkes myself, but purists will want theirs fried in oil.
• You can make homemade peppermint bark and use it (or store bought) to make Chocolate Peppermint Bark Cookies
• Fudge is an easy to make homemade candy that looks great out on the dessert table.
• Gingerbread fans can choose from regular gingerbread, chocolate gingerbread, gingerbread men or spicy ginger cookies.
• Eggnog takes many forms, as well. It can be a drink, pancakes or even cheesecake.
• The Bûche de Noël, simply known as a "yule log," is a classic, chocolatey Christmas dessert that consists of a rolled, filled cake that is covered with a chocolate frosting and shaped to look like a log.
• Last but not least, we have the crowd-pleasing homemade marshmallows. Don't forget to serve them with hot chocolate!

Homemade marshmallows are definitely one of my favorite candies. Unlike store-bought marshmallows, they are like little clouds of sweetness that are soft, tender and melt in your mouth. They are easy to eat, go perfectly with coffee, flavored coffee drinks and hot chocolate, and are ideal for making s'mores. They are also surprisingly easy to make, and very impressive when you bring them out to serve to friends or family. The only real drawback is that you really need a stand mixer to make them, as it allows you to keep your hands free while you're working and has a very large whisk (as opposed to the beaters of a hand-held mixer) that does the job quickly and efficiently.

I really recommend using vanilla bean paste or vanilla bean crush instead of plain vanilla extract because the tiny bean specks really look fantastic in the finished candy. Read on for the recipe, which I have made and enjoyed countless times:

David Lebovitz thinks that Chocolate Covered Marshmallows are a difficult food to photograph and I have to agree with him, having spent a good deal of time photographing marshmallows myself. Those little pillows of sugar have a softness and lightness to them that is hard to capture on film, although that ethereal quality is not exactly what he was referring to when he expressed that opinion. He was referring to the fact that he couldn't stop eating them once he started. I don't blame him one bit, judging from this shot that he managed to snap before they were all gone.

His marshmallows are from Pierre Marcolini in Paris, but if last year was any indication, the closer we get to the holiday shopping season, the easier it will be to find chocolate covered marshmallows at chocolatiers and specialty shops in your area.

A 32-year-old woman in Canada was participating in a Chubby Bunny contest, a game in which participants attempt to stuff as many marshmallows into their mouths as possible and still say "chubby bunny." It is often played by children at camps and sleepovers and, more often than not, all efforts subside into laughter after about the fourth or fifth mallow. Adults take these things more seriously, however, and instead of ending up laughing, the above-mentioned woman ended up in critical condition at a London, Ontario hospital after choking on a marshmallow. The contest was already over and she was walking backstage when she collapsed. She had no vital signs when the paramedics got to her and is currently in critical condition.

The future of Chubby Bunny contests at this fair are seriously in doubt, as it may be in other venues since this is not an isolated incident, and it is possible that other food-events will be more closely monitored in the future ,a reminder to all competitive eaters that chewing your food could potentially be far more important than winning.

Update: Unfortunately, the woman did not recover from the incident.

[image via wikipedia]

The start of the Halloween season is earlier every year - the retail start of the season, that is. This year, even though the "back to school" sales seemed to start before graduations did and the first signs of pumpkins and ghosts were not far behind, I tried to put it out of my mind as long as I could. This weekend I gave in and bought some candy corn, but it's possible that I would have made the Bat S'mores Kit from Williams-Sonoma my first seasonal purchase if not for the fact that it is only available online. The kit is completely unnecessary for those who just want to make a s'more, but it would make a great holiday gift for those who really like to start celebrating in advance. It includes Scharffenberger 41% milk chocolate, bat-shaped graham crackers and homemade marshmallows (enough for eight large s'mores) packed neatly with an orange and black ribbon.

I guess I had s'mores on the brain after writing about them yesterday, since I was inspired to look up the record for the world's largest s'more. The Guinness Book of World Records lists a s'more made in 2003 as the largest. It was constructed in California from 20,000 marshmallows, 7,000 Hershey's chocolate bars, and 24,000 graham crackers. All totaled, it weighed about 1,600-lbs.

The Guinness category was retired, however, which means that an even larger s'more made this year went unrecorded!

The current largest s'more measured 1,936-sq feet and was constructed to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Virginia State Parks. It was made with 8,000 Hershey's chocolate bars, 40,000 marshmallows and 55,000 graham crackers - nearly double the size of the previous record holder, though it didn't use quite as much chocolate.

See a close-up of the s'more's construction after the jump.

If you have ever been to one of these ice cream parlors that allows you to "mix in" toppings with your ice cream, you know that it can be a great deal of fun to create your own blends and that fresh toppings make better additions than whatever already comes in packaged ice creams. Vanilla ice cream with fresh strawberries, for example, is much more interesting than store-bought strawberry ice cream. There is no need to go out to make your own creations, though - you can do it at home! David Lebovitz's homemade rocky road ice cream, which was found on Flickr, is made simply by mixing mini marshmallows and almonds (though some of those nuts look suspiciously peanutty to me) into high quality chocolate ice cream. I have no doubt that this concoction tastes better than prepacked rocky road ice creams, which never seem to have quite enough marshmallows.

For something a little lighter, I like to mix things into frozen yogurt - like brownies. Yum!

 

If the sugary coating on Peeps is too much for you, the Bunnymallows made by Kraft may be the perfect solution. Smaller and more colorful than their large Jet-Puffed cousins, the Bunnymallows are seasonally shaped into miniature bunnies. They seemed to be lighter and less dense than regular Jet Puffs, but it is possible that, because they are a seasonal item, the package was simply much fresher than the bags of marshmallows I usually encounter in stores. Whatever the reason for their wonderfully light texture, they were delicious.