The Perfect Marshmallow

Ever since I was very young, I’ve gone camping with my family. Before we owned a camper, we owned a large tent and I remember sleeping shoulder to shoulder with my siblings inside. Later on, we found creative ways to sleep ourselves in our camper. Cramming 10 of us in there was difficult and uncomfortable, but memorable. I love camping.

One of the very best camping activities, is building a fire and roasting marshmallows. When the time came, dad would have us kids scour the woods for kindling and sticks and anything that we could burn. We’d build a fire, then we would carefully select and compare who found the best marshmallow roasting stick. I even remember finding a stick one time with about 20 different branches hanging down off of it, and consequentially roasting about 20 different marshmallows at once from it. I love roasted marshmallows. Chocolate and graham crackers are great, but I’m often quite satisfied with just popping roasted marshmallows into my mouth until my insides feel sticky.

Later on when I was a teenager, our family bought a cabin in close proximity to some family friends, the Ramptons and the Herberts. We’d go down as often as we could as a family, but I especially enjoyed our camping trips with our friends. Camping with friends often meant large gatherings around a large fire and of course, and endless supply of marshmallows.

As kids tend to do, anything can be turned into a game or a competition. Armed with marshmallows and sticks, we would set out to see who could make the best roasted marshmallow. The perfect marshmallow. What is the perfect marshmallow? The concept is simple, you roast a marshmallow over the fire and get all of the sides, including the top and the bottom, evenly cooked to a smooth golden brown, with the insides perfectly gooey. No burnt spots. No wrinkles or bubbles. No dark patches. No squish marks from your fingers or dents from a log or roasting stick. As if you had a golden brown crayon and colored every surface. The process of creating this spectacle, however, is not as simple as you might think. I’ve found there are at least seven techniques or steps to consider.

First, you have to have the right roasting stick. Not too thick that you create a large hole, but not so thin that the weight of the marshmallow would bend the stick or the marshmallow itself would easily slide off. Not to short that your hand burns from the fire, and not too long that you loose control while roasting. A sturdy, straight, firm, properly girthed, medium sized marshmallow roasting stick can be harder to find than you think.

Second, consider your campfire. You need coals. Open logs with burning embers. If you start a fire and 5 minutes later you’re holding a marshmallow on a stick over open flames, you have already failed. The smoke from the flames is giving your marshmallow an unsightly and distasteful black haze, and any attempt to roast either takes too long, or ignites your marshmallow from an unexpected stray flame. A good fire takes time, burns hot but not TOO hot (more on that next).

Third, roasting angles. When the time comes, approach your fire understanding where the hot spots are and how to best reach them. If you’ve chosen an appropriate length of stick, you should be able to get fairly close for the best angles. But the fire cannot be burning too hot, otherwise you’ll never be able to get close enough to get the proper angles. Holding the stick straight out towards the fire is just going to cook the top, and barely sizzle the sides. You may need to constantly adjust the angle as you roast, keeping it at a proper distance to not burn or take too long to roast.

Fourth, always start with the top. When you insert your stick into the underside of your marshmallow, don’t insert all the way through the top. This is also a good chance to test the hotness of the fire and determine the appropriate distance for roasting. Once you’ve found it, gently hold and move forward and backward slightly until the top is evenly brown. You’ll have to do this quickly before the rest of the marshmallow softens too much so you can properly do the next step.

Fifth, flip the marshmallow to cook the bottom. This is the most challenging step. If you took too long to cook the top, your fingers will smash the sides and you’ve already ruined it. Also the top could be too hard, and inserting the roasting stick through it will ruin the look of the marshmallow. If you’ve roasted the top properly, you should be able to gently press the stick into the roasted top side, so now the bottom is on the top. Repeat the fourth step for evenly roasting the top.

Sixth, the sides. You should now have a marshmallow with an evenly roasted golden brown top and bottom. The sides should still be fairly white and firm. Now is where the angles are the most important. Find an angle to hold your roasting stick against the embers where you expose ONLY  the sides and slowly rotate. Do not expose the top to any more heat, it will bubble and burn. It should not take too long for the sides to start to turn golden brown. They will start to puff out a bit, and that means it’s getting gooey inside. Careful not to take too long to do this, or the gooey-ness starts to make your marshmallow droop, ruining the shape and causing imperfections in your evenly roasted golden brown cylinder.

Last step is removing the marshmallow ever so carefully. Gently hold your hand underneath so it doesn’t droop and allow it to cool for a moment. Removing too quickly makes dents with your fingers as it’s too soft, and therefore ruins the shape and color. If properly removed, you should be holding in your hand, the perfect marshmallow.

Believe me, this is easier said than done, if I’ve ever actually even done it. But when I was a teenager, camping with my family and friends, I was determined. On one occasion, 10+ kids sat around the fire, marshmallows on sticks, everyone fighting for the best spots. Once you thought you had a good marshmallow, you handed it to the judge, my friends dad, Jason Rampton. He would examine all sides, point out any imperfections, and of course pop the marshmallow in his mouth, to ensure proper gooey-ness and flavor. He then gave you a grade, a score between 1-10. 10 of course being a perfect marshmallow, something he claimed had never been achieved. All the more motivation for me.

He started the scoring off in the 5-6 range, some kids got bored pretty quick and left to do something else. Some kids tried roasting 2 or 3 marshmallows but after receiving less than satisfying scores, decided it wasn’t worth it, and moved on. With every marshmallow, the scores would slowly go up and up. 7.8, 8.2, 8.5, 8.8. Finally I started getting scores above 9. Nearly every kid had left at this point and it was only my friend Erin Herbert and I that remained. We stared at each other through the fire, looks of determination in our eyes, words of friendly malice to one another. It started as a game, but this was now on another level. I was going to do it. 9.5, 9.7, 9.87, 9.91, 9.995. The scores kept climbing, ever so slowly. I’m sure Jason Rampton was sick to his stomach of marshmallows by now and hoping Erin and I would just give up, accepting the fact that it was hopeless. Then, finally, I had it. I HAD it. It was dark by now (and for an Alaska summer night, that’s saying something) so visibility was more difficult, but it was FLAWLESS. I held it in my hand. Erin was returning to the fire with a defeated look and a 9.99995 score from her latest marshmallow. She saw my marshmallow, and she knew it was the one. Overcome with rage, she whacked it out of my hand and it fell to the ground. NOOOOOOO! I couldn’t believe it! My perfect marshmallow, now assuredly ruined. Jason Rampton came over, picked up the marshmallow off the ground, examined it, and determined, with a smile on his face, that I had done it. 10. A perfect score. For the first time ever, a perfect marshmallow. He popped it in his mouth, a slight look of relief on his face, turned around, and left. It was over. Erin was looking both ashamed and defeated. I felt victorious. To my knowledge, nobody ever again scored a perfect 10.

No hard feelings to my friend Erin Herbert, of course. In fact I’m glad she knocked mine to the ground. Who knows how long the game would have gone on. Now, whether the marshmallow was actually perfect, who knows. I’m sure Jason Rampton was sick to his stomach and could see that 2 competitive teenagers had taken this game way too far, and he just couldn’t eat any more marshmallows. But ever since then, every time I go camping or even just roast marshmallows with my kids in our backyard fire pit, I try to do it. I try to roast the perfect marshmallow. I’ve probably gotten close, maybe even a 9.99995. But there’s always something that goes wrong. A flaw of some kind, holding it back from achieving that perfect 10.

Total perfection is an illusion, at least in this life. There may be little things we can perfect, like a piano song, or a dance routine. But perfection, ETERNAL perfection, is not possible on our own. In scripture we are commanded to be perfect (Matthew 5:48). But there are multiple modern day prophetic talks that help clarify what this means (Elder Holland "Be Ye Therefore Perfect- Eventually"; President Nelson "Perfection Pending") The older I get, the more I understand that I am not here on this earth to be 100% perfect. Striving to be perfect can be sad, time consuming, unsatisfying, exhausting, and often feel like an epic waste of time. Your definition of perfection is subjective and eventually unacheivable, and therefore the only person you end up competing with when it comes to perfection, is yourself. We are all on different playing fields. We are all living completely different lives. We are all different shaped marshmallows being roasted over different fires at different angles with different sticks and no matter how hard we try, we will never achieve that perfect 10 on our own. However, the dents, the imperfections, and even the flame engulfed burnt to a crisp roasted marshmallows, still taste just as good.

Just be your best you. Be kind. Love others. All this perfection stuff will be figured out in the next life. Do the best you can with your marshmallow.

I'll bring the chocolate and graham crackers.