Caramel Marshmallow Late

Local Entrepreneur Turns Sour Market Into Sweet Treats

When the real estate market started to head south, then-33-year-old Nikki Lewis of White Marsh knew she had to find a new business.

"I’ve always been an entrepreneur," said Lewis, who owned a real estate investment company with her husband Tre for eight years.

"When the market turned we were on the wrong end. We sold our last property and I was looking for a new business to get into," she said.

Lewis knew just where to look: her childhood.

"I have always loved making Rice Krispie treats—I made them with my mom as a kid," she said. "I've been to fancy restaurants and gotten dessert, but when I’m at home I always make Rice Krispie treats."

In June 2009 the down-on-her-luck ex-investor started testing different recipes for marshmallows in her home kitchen. One of her secrets? Beef-based gelatin. Lewis doesn't eat pork, and wanted to find an alternative way to make her marshmallow.

"Making that marshmallow from scratch just tasted so good," Lewis said.

After meeting with food scientists at Ticgums in White Marsh to learn about shelf life, Lewis decided on all-natural ingredients for her treats, which she called "Mallow Munchies," a name that stuck. 

Lewis started selling her treats—huge blocks of crisped rice held together by homemade marshmallow either plain, topped with chocolate, caramel, or filled with a variety of "mix-ins" like roasted pumpkin seeds and cranberries—at the Owings Mills farmers market.

"I went there just to get feedback from people and find out if this could be a viable business for me," Lewis said. "The feedback was extremely positive and I just expanded the business from there."

When Lewis says that "she" expanded the business, she means it. The operation is pretty much just one woman, she said. Although she gets a great deal of support from her family, it's Lewis who makes the 500 or 600 treats, each roughly 3 inches by 4 inches by 3 inches in size, each week in a rented commercial kitchen space.

52 Foods on a Stick: Food on a Stick #32, Caramel Marshmallows ...

Just a few days prior to seeing these at the fair, John and I were at a Wal-Mart in Kentucky.  We don't usually shop at Wal-Mart but had heard that their stores in Kentucky were carrying gluten-free Bisquick. I really wanted to buy some, so we went to Wal-Mart late at night and found not only the Bisquick, but marshmallows the size of your fist. There was also some great people-watching at that store but about the marshmallows... The grocery store usually has two sizes of marshmallows, the small standard size and the giant size.  Sometimes I spot the giant size with toasted coconut on them.  But the ones I saw at Wal-Mart were about five times the size of the typical giant size marshmallow--just ENORMOUS, like the size of an apple!  And then I saw them at the Kentucky State Fair dipped in caramel. Oh my... This Food on a Stick didn't qualify as vegetarian (I don't eat marshmallows because of the gelatin used in them) so Mark agreed to taste this one.  I have to say it looked very tasty, the caramel was gooey and the marshmallows were soft and squooshy.  For a moment I thought about putting my ethical eating standards on hold just so I could taste this!

Marshmallow

The Marshmallow Fluff Cookbook

How late it was, how late

The Late Mattia Pascal

Caramel flava, the eroticanoir.com anthology