Smarshmallows

What the?

Yes, smarshmallows. It's what you get when you dip marshmallows in chocolate and top them with a smarty. Believe me, they're surprisingly good and lots of fun. They even look like fun. How did these come about?

Well yesterday, Tim and I were looking for a place to vote where we wouldn't have to wait for ages or be bombarded by advertising on the walk to the polling place. Despite the 100m safe-zone that's meant to exist around polling places in Canberra, somehow you still wind up running the gamut of election freaks with their 'how to' cards, which given you had about 40 options yesterday, could have been helpful in some circumstances. But that aside, we thought we'd head over to the north (dark) side to drop some stuff off to a friend, and find a place to vote along the way. In doing so, we went past St John's Church in Reid.

For those non-Canberrans reading this, St John's is the oldest church here, and very pretty with lovely grounds. Every year, they have a spring fair that looks like it belongs in an episode of Midsommer Murders. In fact, it's more quaint and English than the supposedly traditional English church fete that Tim and I ventured to last year whilst in England. For the cost of one pound each, we saw exactly nothing but some left over sausages and some sort of highland dancing troupe that wasn't very good. It has to be said that the event was a total flop and we left feeling totally ripped off, and tempted to ask for our pound back!

But I digress...

In the hall at St John's, we found several food stalls. From one I purchased Orange Seville Marmalade for my mum who goes nuts for marmalade. Points for me were gained. Second, I got a few ideas, including for Smarshmallows.

The principle is easy: dip marshmallows in chocolate - I used a good quality milk chocolate - and top with smarties. For one packet of marshmallows, I used a decent handful of chocolate buttons. Simple.

Now in addition to being delicious and looking bright and fun, they photograph so well that it was a joy to play around with the styling of them. The very top photo is my all-time favourite and a good idea for a fun display - very practical storage too - and the one below is what you can do if you're planning to be a bit cheeky and serve these to 'proper' grownups at a dinner party or something.