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[quote=Anonymous]First, PP, I'm fascinated to know what search lead you to revive this four-year-old thread?

Second, I'm now down the rabbit hole, so to the nearly half decade old question of why marshmallows taste like marshmallows and not vanilla:

First, there are other ingredients besides vanilla in the recipe -- its not just vanilla in the flavor profile. Most important: sugar, cooked sugar. Think about the flavor difference between granulated sugar and the same ingredient dissolved in water and cooked into a caramel; and again how different the flavor when it is overcooked or burnt. The cooking changes the flavor profile.

So whichever ingredients you use in your marshmallow recipe, the blend of ingredients changes the flavor, and the cooking process, even the precise temperature chosen, changes it even more.

The most basic home made marshmallow ingredients are sugar, water, and gelatin. Some recipes add vanilla, corn syrup, powdered sugar, salt, egg white, or substitute gelatin for agar agar or other plant based ingredients. All of these will change the flavor profile (and the texture).

Notably, the marshmallow root PP mentions is a plant-based gelatin substitute. It was a thickening agent in the recipe. Now people would use agar agar for vegan marshmallows if they didn't want to use the more typical gelatin (which is an animal product). Marshmallow root also has a distinctive taste, kind of like a licorice cough drop, but not as strong -- so probably not the actual taste most people associate with marshmallows these days anyway.[/quote]

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